


To Touch the Sky

by fromthefiresofhell



Series: The Universe is Ours [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Angst, Cas is 17, Dean is early twenties, M/M, Omega Castiel, Sexual harassement, Slight underageness, Swearing, alpha/omega smut, just gotta soldier on through the first part, narrowly avoided sodomy, people being assbutts to omegas, rolism, second part not so much, the first part is really angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 13:48:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromthefiresofhell/pseuds/fromthefiresofhell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being thrown out of the place he called home for seventeen years of his life, Castiel finds himself alone on the streets, scared and in heat. He meets a kind hearted alpha named Dean who offers him a place to stay, but Castiel soon starts to want more from Dean than a roof over his head and food in his stomach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Touch the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Only beta'd by my own eyes. Any and all mistakes are a result of too many feels and too little sleep.
> 
> *also I was going through this and I realized that some lines have been randomly deleted and all the italics has mysteriously disappeared. I don't know either.

The Novak family was a line of alphas.

There were no two ways about it. Trace the family tree and you’d find alpha after alpha after alpha. It made family gatherings a little tense, but after centuries of practice, self-control was as much a part of their DNA as their dominant role in society was.

So it surprised everyone when Castiel’s thirteenth birthday came and passed without occasion. 

His family assured him he was just a late bloomer, that he’d be sitting reading a book one day when all of a sudden he’d feel the sudden rush of hormones hit him like a freight train, but when his fourteenth birthday passed, and then his fifteenth, the reassurances and pats on the shoulders stopped coming. He was shunned at parties and events, choosing to hole up in his room and only come down if it was absolutely necessary. Even then, his relatives would fake smiles and leave lipstick on his cheek when they kissed it and tell him how big he’d gotten, but as soon as his back was turned they’d point and whisper behind their hands.

By the time he was sixteen, Zachariah had brought him to countless doctors and therapists, all claiming they could “cure him.” They’d tried psychiatrics ( one of which who was so bold to claim that the source of his neutrality was the fact that he’d never known his parents), shamans, doctors, and even a few witch doctors. Castiel had swallowed a limitless array of pills, medicinal teas, and potions. His body had been poked, prodded, shocked, cut, massaged, and doused in various liquids. 

Nothing worked.

Castiel considered the fact that he was asexual, not assigned a specific spot in the dominance ladder. He did some research on the matter, and discovered that too much mating between the same role could result in children that were neither alphas, betas, nor omegas. But by disclosing this information to his uncle, he only served to make matters worse.

“If that’s true,” Zachariah had said, his voice sickly sweet and dripping with simplicity, as if he was talking to a child. “Then why hasn’t it happened to our family before? It would be wise not to fill that head with false information, Castiel, you don’t have much space in there to begin with.”

When his seventeenth birthday came and went, Zachariah informed him that he would be taking him to church to pray for his salvation. Castiel obliged grudgingly, retreating to his room to put on a suit.

He was just shrugging on his coat when Anna flew into the room in a burst of red hair and wild brown eyes.

“Castiel,” she panted, words hushed and glancing over her shoulder at the doorway. “You have to leave! He isn’t bringing where he says he is!”

“Calm down, Anna,” Castiel said, grasping his sister’s shaking hands between his own. “Tell me what’s happening.”

“Zachariah,” she stopped to gulp a few breaths. “I heard him talking on the phone. He’s bringing you to an alpha construction camp, Castiel!”

It was like the all the air had sudden left the room. Castiel opened his mouth a few times, trying to pull words from his throat that would be an appropriate response. 

“You must have heard wrong,” he finally managed to croak. Zachariah had never particularly liked him, but surely he would never do _this_. He would never send him to one of those awful places. They preached healthy change and acceptance, but Castiel had seen what their “graduates” looked like. Their eyes were dull and their skin was pale and he was sure that, under their crisp dress shirts, countless scars littered the expanse of their chests.

“I didn’t! I swear, brother, I swear on my life. Zachariah asked me a few days ago if you had any friends outside the family.” Anna’s eyes grew watery and her bottom lip trembled. It was unlike her to show such emotion, even if she was a particularly kind alpha. “I didn’t know why he was asking. I told him no! If I had known-…” she stopped, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth and squeezing Castiel’s hands in her own.

The cold knife of truth twisted in Castiel’s stomach. His uncle had betrayed him. He was going to ship his own nephew off to a tortuous prison just to preserve the Novak family name. A sick wave of nausea swept over him, forcing him to stumble away from Anna and collapse onto his bed, putting his head between his knees to steady the roiling of his stomach. 

The nausea was closely followed by an overwhelming sense of dizziness. Black pricked the edges of his vision and the world spun around him, only serving to increase his queasiness. Castiel pressed his fingers to his temples and breathed slowly, willing the sensation to leave. He couldn’t afford another attack. Not now. 

Inhale.

Exhale.

In.

Out.

Breathe, Castiel.

Breathe.

“Castiel!” The tone of his sister’s voice suggested she had been calling it multiple times now. He raised his head slowly. “You have to go!”

“Where?”

“Anywhere but here.” Anna threw open his closet and pulled his duffel bag out. She began ripping open his bureau drawers and shoving clothes into it, pausing every once and a while to snap her fingers in front of his face to make sure he stayed focused and didn’t descend into a black-out. 

It as like the floor had been ripped out from under him and he was struggling to stay on his feet, even though there was nothing to stand on. All his life, his family had been the only thing he could really rely on, the only thing he was ever certain about. He might have had no friends, but he knew he could always come home and be read to by Michael or play catch with Hester. 

Now, that had been taken away from him. He had no home anymore.

He couldn’t even find it in him to feel betrayed by his siblings. They hadn’t known. Of course, he didn’t know for sure if they would’ve helped him even if they did know, but his brain wasn’t really up to debating the matter at the moment. Lucifer might have taken his side and protected him, but he was long gone, run off a few years ago with his girlfriend to ride motorcycles and get tattoos and drink beer. 

Castiel doesn’t even know what happened to him. He might not have been as close to Lucifer as to his other siblings, but not knowing if he lived or died was torture. After he left, Zachariah never mentioned him again. All pictures of Castiel’s brother mysteriously disappeared from the house that night, along with any fragment, any scrap of a memory that was connected to him.

He could only imagine what will become of his name. 

When the duffel was full of clothes, Anna shoved it into his arms and pulled him up by the lapels of his coat. 

“Here.” She pressed a thick wad of bills into his palm. “Don’t stay in town. Don’t talk to anyone you know. Don’t go where there are a lot of security cameras. Don’t try to contact us in anyway. Do you understand?”

Castiel nodded, incapable of speech. 

“Good.” Anna’s eyes roamed his face and her expression softened, the hard lines of her forehead and sharp line of her mouth relaxing. She reached up and wound her arms around his neck, something she hadn’t done since Castiel was eight and had broken his ankle on the playground. “I will miss you, brother.”

Castiel buried his face in her neck and inhaled her scent. Not that of an alpha- his neutral nose couldn’t pick those pheromones u- but that of his sister. She smelled like she always had, like home and warmth and the strange underlying scent of oranges that Castiel never could quite pinpoint the origin of. He breathed out a broken sob against her pulse and squeezed her tighter before letting go.

“I should go,” he whispered. Anna nodded and cracked the door, peeking out to check the hallway. Once she was sure it was clear, she beckoned him out.

Castiel was glad for the thick carpeting in their manor, the plush fibers muffling their footsteps as the pair crept through the hallways. The silence of the house seemed heavy, pressing down on his shoulders as he ducked behind corners and pressed himself to walls. Every tiny sound, every swish of his coat or squeak of the floorboards, sounded like a gunshot in the quiet. 

The sight of the back door had never offered so much relief. Castiel let out the breath he felt like he had been holding for the past few minutes and swung the duffel up onto his shoulder. This was it. 

“Castiel?”

Both Anna and Castiel spun around at the sound, eyes widening in fear. Instead of the pudgy form of Zachariah, though, the doorway was filled with the slight figure of Samandriel. The young boy glanced between Castiel, Anna, the duffel bag, and back to Castiel again, a confused frown crumpling his face.

“What’s going on? Where are you going?”

Anna grabbed his shoulder, ready to conjure up an excuse, but Castiel hushed her. He knelt in front of his younger brother and put his hands on Samandriel’s slim shoulders.

“I have to leave, Samandriel.”

“When will you be coming back?”

“I won’t.”

“W-why?” The boy’s bottom lip started quivering, eyes growing round and glassy with unshed tears.

Instead of answering, Castiel drew his brother in close for a hug, swallowing the lump in his throat when Samandriel’s arms wrapped around his shoulders and hugged him back just as tightly. Already, his eight year old body was developing hard angles and thicker limbs in places Castiel was still lean and slender.  


"Can I give you something?"

Castiel pulled back to look at Samandriel’s face. He stared back with pleading eyes.

“Castiel,” Anna hissed. “You really have to-”

“Of course.”

Samandriel sniffed and reached into his pocket, pulling out a long cord with a smooth, green stone dangling off of it. The rock was almost perfectly round and a deep shade of emerald green, sunlight reflecting dully off the black-flecked surface.

“Here,” Samandriel said, and Castiel ducked his head to allow the necklace to slip onto his neck. “Rachel gave it to me. She said it’s good luck.”

“Thank you, Samandriel.” Castiel briefly pressed his lips to his younger brother’s forehead before standing up and hiking the duffel up higher onto his shoulder.

It only took three steps to walk out the door and leave his whole life behind him.

 

Castiel made it four hours before he collapsed. It was just all too much. The anger, Zachariah's betrayal ignited, the gaping hole the loss of his family left behind, and the fear of being alone for the first time in his life made it feel like the air was made of lead.

He sat down with his back against a tree and dropped his bag beside him. It took a grand total of six seconds before the tears swam across his vision, blurring the forest around him into a puddle of messy color.

Once he started, he couldn’t stop. It just made the pain worse, but it somehow made it better at the same time, so he curled on his side in a fetal position and muffled his sobs against his sleeve. 

That night, Castiel fell asleep in a bed of dirt with the sky for a ceiling.

 

Somehow, Castiel managed to survive long enough to make it out of Pontiac. Out of Illinois entirely, in fact. A combination of hitchhiking, train riding, and walking got him all the way to Kansas. He remembered Zachariah once telling him that the last place he would ever want to live was Kansas. 

Castiel couldn’t figure out why. It was nice, all rolling hills filled with swaying wheat and corn and the occasional sunflower field that stretched as far as the eye could see. If he was walking through a small town, sometimes people would stop and offer him a little bit of money or the other half of their bagel. 

He gladly accepted their offerings. He was not above charity. 

His shoes, shiny, leather things that he had chosen to go with his suit for church, fell off his feet by the tenth day. On that day, Castiel went to a laundry mat. His suit was a lost cause by now, torn and stained beyond repair, but his trench coat could be salvaged. Never the less, he put all his clothing in the washing machine, including the crumpled suit. He might not be able to wear it anymore, but it might come in handy for something else.

When Castiel closed the washing machine door, his hand hovered over the button-filled panel uncertainly. He had never had to do his own laundry, a maid always did that, and he had no idea what buttons to press. 

A feeling of helplessness suddenly overwhelmed him, punching him in the gut and nearly forcing him to double over. He couldn’t even work a washing machine, how the hell was he supposed to survive? He didn’t even know where he was walking to, much less what he would do when he got there. The money Anna gave him was quickly running out, spent on cheap diner food and rides on the train or in trucks, and in a few days he wouldn’t even have enough left to feed himself, much less rent an apartment.

He could feel his panic attack setting in, no matter how hard he tried to fight it off. Here he was, in the middle of a laundromat, having a panic attack about not knowing what buttons to press.

He was completely fucked. 

“You need help, honey?”

Castiel’s head snapped up, suddenly hyper-aware of how heavy his breathing was and how much his body was shaking. A short, plump African American woman with the biggest hair Castiel had ever seen stood in front of him, scrutinizing him with a squinting, brown gaze. 

“I don’t know what buttons to press,” Castiel said feebly, cringing inwardly at how uneven his voice sounded.

The woman didn’t mention his state, though, simply shouldered him out of the way and took his place on front of the machine. 

“You doin’ lights or darks?”

“Um, both.”

“Well then, best go with warm.” Castiel watched as the lady pressed a button labeled "spin cycle", then one with the letters peeling off that read "warm" before cranking a timer to forty five minutes and pressing it in. The machine started with a loud whir.

“There, now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Castiel glanced apprehensively between her and the machine, unsure if she was ridiculing him or not.

“I ain’t makin’ fun of you, boy.” The woman stuck out her hand. “Missouri Mosley.”

Castiel grasped her hand and introduced himself.

“The Angel of Thursday, huh? Righ’ in the middle of my laundromat. Would you fancy that!”

“How did you know?” Most people screwed up their eyes or cocked their head at his name, confused by the exotic sound of it.

Missouri waved her hand dismissively. “My parents were real religious folk.” She crossed her arms and gave him a once over, making Castiel very conscious of the fact that he was dressed in only six-day old boxers, before huffing and nodding, as if he had passed some kind of test.

“Angel,” she said. “You look like you could use a hot shower and a good meal.” When Castiel remained silent, she rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, dragging him aware from the spinning washing machine. “Come on, I live behind this dump. I’ve got some of my son’s old clothes that should fit you.”

Missouri was right, he _did_ need a hot shower.

Her house was small and quaint, filled with old furniture and tribal decoration, but it bore the feel of a home. He could tell that some of these objects held old memories.

It took fifteen minutes for the water to run clear, and ten more for Castiel to scrub the grease from his hair. When he stepped out of the shower, he found a pile of folded clothes on the sink for him, along with a comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, and a razor.

Emerging from that bathroom an hour later made Castiel feel like a changed man. He snuck downstairs to the kitchen where Missouri was taking a pan out of the oven, standing in the doorway a few moments before clearing his throat to announce his presence. 

Missouri turned around and gave him a smile. “Sit down right here, angel, I got fresh biscuits jus’ comin’ outta the oven.”

Castiel sat in the instructed chair and watched as Missouri carried over dish after dish after dish. By the time she had finally transferred all the food from the kitchen to the dining room, Castiel’s stomach was nearly folded in on itself with hunger.

“I can see you eyein’ everything like a lion, boy, so quit bein’ polite and dig in!”

Castiel had never tasted anything so delicious in his entire life. The fried chicken was the perfect mixture of crunchy and soft and the carrots were steamed to perfection and the biscuits were moist but still crumbly and the potatoes were creamy and salty. He ate four plates in the time it took Missouri to eat one, watching fondly over her own meal as Castiel all but inhaled his food.

He wasn’t expecting the ice cream that Missouri pulled out of the freezer after they were done. She must have seen his face, because she huffed out a laugh as she scooped out portions for them both.

“S’ice cream, not Jesus on flatbread.”

“Sorry,” Castiel mumbled, ducking his head as he felt a flush rise in his cheeks. “It’s just…I never got it much. Back home, I mean.”

Missourri seemed to sense that he didn’t want to talk about it, because all she did was nod and give him an extra cherry. 

 

After dinner, Missouri insisted that Castiel stay the night.

“I ain’t having you sleepin’ under some bridge when I have a perfectly empty bed jus’ waitin’ for a warm body to fill it,” she said, refusing to listen to the weak excuses Castiel tried to come up with. 

That night, Castie slept under a homemade quilt with his head resting on a goosefeather pillow. 

 

The next morning, Castiel woke after the sun had risen, a rarity for him now. He padded down to the kitchen to find heaping plate of scrambled eggs, sausage, and bacon waiting for him on the countertop. Propped next to it was a note, stained slightly with a coffee blot and written in chick-scratch handwriting. Castiel picked it up and squinted at it, pulling it nearer to his face then farther away as he tried to decipher the words.

_Morning, Angel._  
I had to run down to the corner store to get more detergent, you looked too peaceful to wake up. Now you sit your butt down in that chair and eat everything on that plate and don’t you leave until I get back. Don’t you think you can be running out on me without saying goodbye.  
M

Castiel grinned. He did admire her spirit.

Folding the note and putting it in his pocket, Castiel carried the plate into the dining room and sat down with it. While he ate, he took time to take in his surroundings. While the place had a homey feel to it, there was one thing it was missing,

Missouri had mentioned her son, but Castiel didn’t see a single picture of him. No diploma copy hung on the wall, no school portraits, no childhood scribbles framed and kept as a memory of earlier times. Missouri didn’t seem like the type of person who would erase someone so close to her.

But, then again, neither did Zachariah. 

The front door banged open as Missouri came back, grumbling to herself as she heaved several giant bottles of detergent onto the counter. 

“Miss Mosley?”

She grunted. “Call me Missouri. Miss Mosley makes me feel like an old woman.”

“Okay, um Missouri, what happened to your son?”

Missouri halted in her tracks, hand halfway lifted and reaching for the bottle. Her ring finger twitched.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel blurted, racing to cover his tracks. “That was inappropriate of me. I shouldn’t ha-”

“S’alright, honey,” Missouri interrupted, voice soft. “I’ll tell you.” 

The woman sat down heavily in the chair across from Castiel, reaching out to fiddle with the bowl of incense in the middle of the table. 

“He was a soldier,” she started. “In Iraq. Two years, he was o’er there. Sent me a letter almost every day.” Missouri chuckled and shook her head. “They got here out of order sometimes, so he had to number 'em. But when the letters stopped comin’…well, I knew somethin’ was wrong.

“Got the call two days later. Said it was an “honorable death,” like that would help me somehow. The men he saved called me, too, all six of them, to tell me how brave he had been. There was a big ceremony, they gave me all these ribbons and metals, patted me on the back and told me how I had “raised him right.’” She looked up, eyes hard. “I told them, “what does it matter how I raised him when I ain’t gonna see him no more?’”

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said softly. He couldn’t imagine what she had gone through. Being torn from his family was one thing, but the small fact that they were all safe helped him cope with their absence. If they were gone, not only lost from his life, but from the planet as well?...He shuddered.

“It ain’t your fault, angel, you got nothin’ to apologize for.” Missouri turned her gaze out the window, staring at something Castiel couldn’t see for a few moments while she collected her thoughts. 

After a while, she turned her gaze back to the boy standing in front of her. 

“I’ll tell you something, though. Jus’ a few days before he passed on, he told me about how they would pass civilians on the side of the road, some of ‘em were just kids, with no homes or food or hope. He’d give some of them part of his meals, sometimes, and they’d be so grateful. He said the firs’ thing he was gonna do when he got back was start a homeless shelter.

“Superstitious woman like me, I couldn’ jus’ let that slide. Lot of lost souls wander through this hell hole of a town, and I make sure to show ‘em any kindness I can.” Missouri offered a small smile and reached over to pat Castiel's hand where it was wrapped around his fork. “You remind me of him.”

A heavy silence bloated the air. Castiel didn’t know what to say after such a personal revelation. Missouri turned her gaze back out the window, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

Raphael had joined the army as soon as he turned 18, eager to fight for his country and what he believed in. He had always been cold towards his siblings, especially Castiel and his unique ways, so he hadn’t been sad to see his brother go.

Now, though, he wished he had gotten to know Raphael better. He would never have the chance now.

“My uncle,” Castiel said, and Missouri snapped out of whatever daze she had been in to focus her attention on him. “He…kicked me out.”

“Cause of your neutrality?”

Castiel inhaled sharply. “How did you know?”

“This nose,” she said, tapping the side of her small nose “may be attached to a beta, but it’s as sharp as a tack.” Her voice grew gentle. “It ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, honey. I was a late bloomer myself.”

“That wasn’t Zachariah’s mentality,” Castiel said darkly. “He was going to take me to an alpha construction camp. I didn’t even have time to take anything other than a few changes of clothes with me.”

Missouri shook her head, then smirked as if a sudden idea had hit her. “Wait right here. I have somethin’ to give you before you go.”

Castiel waited patiently as Missouri tinkered around for a minute or two before coming back with a bundled package that she shoved into his arms, motioning for him to open it.

The ripped, wrinkled paper fell away from the package easily, showing fold marks where it had obviously been opened and then taped up again many times. Inside was a folded red coat. Castiel lifted it from his lap to inspect it further. It was heavily padded, swishing whenever it moved when the waterproof material rubbed together. The price tag was still attached to the sleeve, though the price had been scribbled out. 

“Got it for my Victor,” Missouri said, smiling as she watched Castiel examine the coat. “Gets cold here at night.”

“I can’t accept this.” Castiel folded the coat in his lap, frowning at Missouri. Any reminder of your family, no matter how useless, was something very close to your heart. The rock resting on his chest was a reminder of that.

“I want you to,” Missouri said, voice firm and leaving no room for discussion. “It ain’t no use to me, and Victor don’t need it no more.”

“Missouri-”

“This ain’t a democracy, angel. Now you make sure you got everythin’, I’m gonna put together some food for you to take.”

She left the room swiftly, leaving Castiel clutching the coat in his lap, and soon he heard the banging of cupboards and pantries being opened. Sighing, he hooked the coat under his arm and went back to the bedroom where he made sure all his belongings were in the duffel bag. When he was certain everything was there, he swung it up onto his shoulder and joined Missouri in the kitchen. 

She was holding a giant plastic bag filled with Tupperware, and spun Castiel around before proceeding to shove the whole bag inside his. When it was closed again, Missouri put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.

“You take care of yourself, angel,” she murmured.

“I will.” Castiel turned around and offered his hand.

Missouri took one look at his outstretched hand and shook her head, pulling him into a hug instead. Hesitantly, Castiel looped his arms around her shoulders and squeezed her back. Her head rested just above his chest.

“Off with you now,” she said as she pulled back from the hug. “You’re losin’ sunlight.”

Castiel shrugged on the coat, grinning gently as Missouri smoothed her hand down the his arm to straighten the wrinkles, and with one last hug, left her standing in her doorway watching him set of down the road.

The bounce had returned to his step after that night, feet comfortable in a pair of Victor’s old sneakers and legs protected by his thick jeans. His stomach was full, his eyes were alert, and he felt fresh and clean.

Life was good.

 

Two days later, it rained. 

Not a light sprinkle that made the pavement darker and the grass damp, but a downpour that flooded out fields and felled small trees. With no buildings for miles around, Castiel huddled under a small bridge, knees tucked up under his chin to keep the steadily rising water away from his feet.

The obscuring curtain of water and loud pound of the drops on the wood above him played tricks on his mind. More than a few times, Castiel though he heard the footsteps of his family, or his siblings’ voices calling out into the wet night. Once or twice, he could have sworn he saw a silhouette beckoning to him. 

So instead of looking out into the dark, he rested his forehead on his legs and clenched his fingers around Samandriel’s stone, warm from his sitting against his skin, and focused on the smoothness of it to ground him to reality.

With nothing better to do, Castiel retreated into his mind.

 

_The sun was shining brightly that day, reflecting off the lake in sparkles that were too painful to look at and illuminating the water lapping at Castiel’s knees in a golden hue._

_Ezekiel stood behind him, guiding his arms in the correct movement of throwing the line out into the water and showing him how to stand perfectly still so he wouldn’t scare the fish away. The few words they exchanged were soft and quiet, neither eager to disrupt the peaceful beauty around them._

_He was ten years old. This trip was for his birthday._

_Castiel reeled in his line twenty seven times that day with no bites. Ezekiel was patient, so unlike his uncle. He praised what Castiel was doing right instead of punishing him for what he did wrong and grinned when he figured it out on his own._

_Still, Castiel did not want to fail him. He refused to move from that spot until he caught a fish, no matter how many times Ezekiel suggested they go back to the cabin. He stood as still as was physically possible, willing a fish to bite with all his might._

_He didn’t own a pair of shorts, so he was wearing rolled up pants._

_Zachariah would never let him roll up his pants._

_The twenty eighth time Castiel threw the line, he felt a light tug. He shouted for his brother, staring wide eyed at the line as it was pulled taunt in his grasp. The white and red ball attached to the string bobbed furiously in the water, sometimes disappearing from his sight it was pulled so deep._

_“Pull him in, Castiel!” Ezekiel called, hands cupped around his mouth. “Pull him in!”_

_There was a particularly hard tug and the pole flew from Castiel’s grasp._

_He watched in horror as the pole flew through the air before landing with a smack in the middle of the lake, floating just beneath the surface and darting around as the fish on the other end desperately tried to get free._

_Castiel whipped around, apology already forming in his throat, but then he saw his brother’s face. Ezekiel’s cheeks were red from contained laughter, but one look at Castiel’s panicked expression and he let loose, doubling almost in half in an effort to keep himself standing._

_They dragged the canoe down to the water, Ezekiel chuckling and snorting the entire way, and paddled out to where the pole had snagged on a patch of reeds. Ezekiel yanked it out of the plants and reeled the fish it._

_Castiel watched as his older brother tore the hook from the fish’s mouth and tossed it onto the floor of the boat where it flopped weakly a few times, gills fluttering in a desperate attempt to breathe, before going completely still. The sun glinted off its scales just as beautifully as it had off the water._

_“Don’t step on that fish, Castiel,” Ezekiel grinned. “Big plans for that fish.”_

_That night, Castiel learned how to gut and fry a large-mouth bass. They ate it with carrots from Ezekiel’s garden and homemade French fries._

_Ezekiel said it was the best fish he’d ever had._

Ezekiel had two children now, Castiel remembered. Twins. A girl named Hael and a boy named Inias. He had sent a family portrait after they were born, him and his wife Hannah cradling the babies in their arms. They were the tiniest, most fragile things Castiel had ever seen, with wide blue eyes staring at the camera in mystification. When he asked Zachariah when they would be able to see them, his uncle had sneered.

“Give me that,” he snapped, snatching the picture from Castiel’s grasp. “We don’t associate with rednecks.”

“But he’s my brother,” Castiel had said, not yet knowing what Zachariah considered “family.”

“No,” his uncle said as he tore the picture in half right in front of Castiel’s face. “He’s a lowlife hillybilly who you are never to speak to again.”

He never did. 

 

_Why is the sky blue?”_

_He is seven, the age where everything is a question and there is no such thing as embarrassment._

_“Because it reflects your eyes,” Gabriel said, pulling his lollipop out of his mouth only long enough to speak the words._

_“But my eyes aren’t that big,” Castiel had frowned._

_“Yes, little bro, they really are.”_

_That night, while getting ready for bed, Castiel stood in front of the mirror and inspected his eyes. He pulled at the lids and stretched them in different ways for at least five minutes before concluding that Gabriel must have had too much sugar that day, because there is no way his eyes could influence all that sky._

 

Gabriel had gone off to college the next month to become a lawyer- a “respectable man,” Zachariah had said. It was halfway through the semester before he discovered that Gabriel had, in fact, gone to intern for a production company in the area and was using the tuition Zachariah was sending him to throw extravagant parties. 

He stopped sending money.

Anna explained to him that it was Gabriel’s dream to become an actor. Castiel was awed. His brother? An actor?

Sometimes, he would turn on the TV a few minutes before the news came on in the hopes of seeing his brother on a program or in the premier of a movie. Zachariah caught on to what he was doing soon enough, though, and all the televisions disappeared from the house.

And so Gabriel became a ghost, too.

 

_“Hey, Castiel.”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Wanna to see something cool?”_

_When Castiel nodded, Lucifer knelt down next to his twelve his year old brother and rolled up the sleeve of his dress shirt._

_Castiel’s eyes widened. “What’s_ that _?”_

_“A tattoo,” Lucifer grinned. The soft underside of his arm was pink and inflamed, and in the center of the irritated flesh, a simple snake looped around his arm. It had an apple in his mouth, sharply fanged teeth sinking into the flesh of the fruit._

_“Get it?” his brother grinned. “Like the snake in the Bible. And Eve’s apple. I figure, old Zachie made us read it so many times, why not have my favorite character put on my arm?”_

_“Your favorite entity in the Bible is the Devil?”_

_Lucifer's smile grew. “Damn right.”_

 

Castiel wished he had tried to remain in contact with them. They would definitely help him now, having experienced the harshness of Zachariah’s _survival of the fittest_ demeanor themselves. 

But he was alone in the rain with the memories of three lost brothers sitting beside him and wearing the last connection to his family around his neck.

 

The water rose even higher, and Castiel was forced to climb up into the beams under the bridge among the cobwebs and old bird nests. Luckily, in the cool October weather, all the animals were gone, but within moments his hair was filled with cobwebs and his nostrils were packed with dust.

That night, Castiel fell asleep in the company of eggshells listening to the sky weep around him. 

 

_“What do you want?”_

_Castiel started and glanced around him. He was standing in a pristine park with cushiony grass under his feet and a blue, cloudless sky above his head. The whole area was enclosed in a neat perimeter of tall hedges and, to his right, a middle-aged man was flying a kite._

_“What do you want?”_

_Upon turning around, Castiel was faced with the backs of two people- a man and a woman. Both had average brown hair in simple hairstyles and were dressed sharply, like CEO’s on the way to a meeting._

_“Who are you?” Castiel asked._

_“What do you want?”_

_“I don’t understand,” he replied, growing frustrated. The pair seemed to spark some distant memory- he felt like he knew them, but just couldn’t quite place them._

_“If you could have anything, anything in the world, what would it be?” the woman asked._

_Castiel paused. Before his escape, he had never really made decisions for himself. It was all Zachariah’s choosing- what he wore, what lessons he studied, where he went, what tutors he had, what he ate, when he woke up, when he went for a run, who he talked to. Everything was dictated by his uncle._

_“I don’t know,” he admitted._

_“One thing, Castiel.”_

_“To… to have a family, I suppose.”_

_“You have a family.” This time, the voices came from to the left of him. Castiel whipped around, coming upon the sight of every one of his sixteen siblings standing together. It was an inaccurate picture- Anna appeared to be the same age as when he left the estate, but his older siblings, those who must be in their thirties by now, were as old as they were when he last saw them. Some had facial features that were lopsided or blurry, or static hair that never stayed the same for long, even though there was no wind._

_“We are you family,” his siblings said in unison. They were all dressed in their church clothes. Samandriel clutched a teddy bear to his chest._

_“Friends, then.”_

_“We are your friends.”_

_“Well what am I supposed to say?” Castiel snapped._

_“How do you expect to find your way,” the man said, “when you don’t even know what you want?”_

_“I want to fit in!” Castiel yelled, wheeling around and stomping towards the two adults. “I want to have friends and coworkers and classmates without having to worry that my uncle is going to walk through the door and whisk me away to a construction camp!”_

_Before the either adult could reply, Castiel slammed his hands on their shoulder and made to turn them around._

 

Castiel awoke gasping for breath, hands clutching at the empty air where two shoulders had been not moments before. He scrambled for purchase on the wood beneath him, hands stinging where they pressed into shards of broken eggshells, as he tried to remember where he was. 

The rafters he was laying on vibrated, and the sound of a car flying past pounded his eardrums, and Castiel recalled the past night. The rain, the painful memories, the flooding. He peered down at the creek beneath him. It was still swelled with the rain of the past night, but at least now there was a considerable amount of land for him to stand on.

Castiel tossed his bag onto the ground before climbing down after it, landing with a grunt and a thud on the slightly damp bank. The water was running clear, free of silt or garbage, so he splashed some up onto his face and ran his damp fingers through his hair to remove the dust and cobwebs. His throat was dry and screamed every time he swallowed, but he dare not take a drink from the brook. He had no matches or wood to light a fire and boil the water with, and God only knows what kind of bacteria was in it. 

The sun was shining bright and warm and Castiel left the shade of the bridge to sit on the gently sloping hill, soaking up the morning sun. It was warm enough to go without Victor’s jacket, so he shoved it in his duffel and pulled out the last of Missouri’s food to eat. He had finished off the water yesterday, but he still had a bag of pretzels and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich left. He only ate the sandwich, the pretzels were too salty to eat when he was already so thirsty.

After demolishing his meager breakfast and licking the last traces of jam off his fingers, Castiel set off walking down the highway. The road in front of him seemed endless, but at least the weather was nice. 

He figured he could go about two more days without water before he suffered major dehydration. Hopefully there was some sort of civilization within a day’s walk were he could either fill up the empty water bottles in his duffel or buy more. If he could find one, he would definitely buy a pot and a lighter so he could boil water whenever he needed. Some more food would be nice, too, but he wasn’t very hungry yet. Maybe if he walked past a crop field of some sort- corn seemed to make up the majority of the agricultural industry here- then he could take a few ears to cook later.

By five o’clock, Castiel could see the skyline of a sizable looking town on the horizon. He still had $37.56, plenty to buy a few essentials. He could feel blood dripping down his ankles where his blisters from his new shoes had popped, so he added thicker socks and band-aids to his mental list.

When it started growing dark, Castiel decided to stop for the night. The town was close enough that he would reach it by noon tomorrow, no use walking himself to the point of exhaustion when nothing would be open by the time he got there.

There weren’t any buildings around, so he threw his duffel onto the ground in a shallow ditch and pulled on Victor’s jacket, laid down, and tucked a few sweatshirts around him for better insulation. Missouri was right, the nights did get cold. Already, in the fading dusk, Castiel could see his breath form tiny clouds of condensation in front of him.

Before he fell asleep, he pulled the hood of one of his sweatshirts up over his face to trap the heat of his breath. 

Castiel fell asleep that night among swaying grass and the songs of crickets.

 

A putrid puff of air into his face made Castiel jerk awake.

He tried to sit up, but something was restricting his movement. It took him a few moments of dazed confusion before he realized it was a man, and a large one at that. He was draped almost entirely over Castiel, leering at him with icy blue eyes and crooked, yellowed teeth. The sweatshirts that had previously been gathered around Castiel like a nest had been thrown to the side and his jacket, sweatshirt, and shirt had been ripped open to expose his bare chest.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” the stranger drawled in a voice so nasal it made Castiel shudder. “What’s a pretty little omega like yourself doin’ out here all by yourself?”

Castiel blinked. “I-…what? I’m not an-” 

“Think I can’t smell you?” the man interrupted, leaning down and sniffing below Castiel’s jaw. “Mmm, you’re all flowers and rainbows, honey.” 

The man licked up Castiel’s neck, tongue slimy and revoltingly warm. He tried to push the stranger off, but whoever he was had Castiel successfully pinned to the ground. His thin limbs were deceptively strong.

“What do you want?” 

“More like what do you want?” he grinned. Shifting a little on his legs to straddle Castiel’s thigh, the man started rutting up against him. Castiel’s breath caught in his throat when he felt a hot hardness press into him and he felt his eyes grow wide with fear. “Bet you’d beg for it, wouldn’t you? Beg for my knot?”

“Get off me,” Castiel snapped, arching up to try and throw the creep off. All the stranger did was lean down to smell his neck again. 

“This is you’re first heat, isn’t it?” Castiel froze. “Oh it is. I can smell all that delicious virgin on you.”

The rude awakening had left Castiel out of tune with his body, but now that he was aware of it, he could feel heat rolling off his flesh in waves. The hair at the nape of his neck was soaking with sweat and drops of it were sliding down between his shoulders and under his arms. His vision was slightly blurry, eyes stinging when the shadow of the man on top of him didn’t completely block out the sun, and his throat was so dry it felt like it might catch on fire.

After years of research and waiting for the slightest indication of any role with desperate hope, Castiel knew what this was.

“I’m in heat,” he said softly, with something akin to awe in his voice.

“I’ll help you with that, baby,” the stranger said, humping his leg even harder now. With his heightened senses, Castiel realized that not only was his breath rancid, but his entire scent was too. He smelled like sour wine. The stench was clogging Castiel’s throat, filling his lungs and making it nearly impossible to breathe. 

“No,” Castiel gasped, trying to jerk out of his grasp. “No, leave me alone.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t want it,” the man droned, lapping behind Castiel’s jaw at his scent glands again. He gagged. “Any omega whore would be lucky to have an alpha like me.” 

The man dropped his head to Castiel’s bare chest and sucked harshly on one of his nipples. Castiel whimpered at the bolt of pleasure-pain it caused, disgusted with himself when his dick twitched a little at the sensation. The alpha growled in satisfaction, staring at Castiel with pupils so wide they nearly engulfed his whole iris while he flicked his tongue sharply over Castiel’s nipple. 

“Stop,” Castiel choked out. “Stop, I don’t want-”

Before he even processed what had happened, the harsh crack of skin on skin split the air, and his cheek was zinging with pain. 

“Shut up, slut,” the man growled. “No one likes a whiner. Now be a good little bitch and hold still.”

Castiel was dimly aware of the sound of a zipper being pulled down, and then a freezing hand was fumbling with his own fly. The pressure was gone from his left arm, the hand that had been holding it down now preoccupied with trying to tug off his pants.

In a flash, Castiel twisted out from under his attacker, elbowing his throat in the process, and leapt up. The man clutched at his windpipe where a dark bruise was already forming, gasping for breath and coughing as his neck muscles undulated under his pale skin. For good measure, Castiel kicked him hard in the crotch before turning on his heel and fleeing, running as fast as his wobbly knees would carry him.

By the time his legs gave out, Castiel was miles from where the alpha’s truck was parked. It was only then that he remembered his bag and extra sweatshirts were still lying in the ditch, along with whatever money he had left, but it wasn’t worth it to go back. 

He felt dirty, physically and internally. He was tainted where the stranger’s hands and mouth had touched him and sullied to his core with the stench of foul grapes. 

Shaking, Castiel buttoned his shirt and zipped his sweatshirt and jacket back up, carefully avoiding touching the nipple the alpha had sucked. After smoothing out the wrinkles in his clothes, Castiel touched his scent gland, cringing when he felt rapidly drying saliva cooling there. The attacker had slobbered over the whole left side of his neck, leaving him feeling damp and used. 

In fact, his body was damp. His scent glands were damp with oils, his skin was damp with sweat, and between his legs was damp with the excessive amount of slick produced in his heat. 

An omega. He was an omega. Zachariah might have accepted him back into the house if he had been an alpha, maybe if he was a beta, but certainly not if he was an omega. If he went back now, he would only be turned away again, or worse. Castiel wouldn’t put it past his uncle to sell him to a breeder.

Castiel rolled into a sitting position and put his head on his knees, focusing on his breathing. He would spend his whole life purchasing pills to avoid being raped and struggling to find employment because of his submissive role in society. There were laws in place to protect against omega discrimination, but every law had a loophole and the majority of the population still thought that they were weak and only good for their heats.

Speaking of, Castiel could already feel his heat getting worse. His hands had started to shake minutely and his internal temperature was skyrocketing, completely at odds with the goosebumps erupting over his skin like wildfire. 

There was still no sign of the repulsive man, but Castiel pushed himself to his feet none the less and continued walking steadily towards the ever approaching town. If he could make it into the city and onto crowded streets, it would be safer than sleeping in the middle of nowhere.

So Castiel walked.

 

_Welcome to Lawrence  
Population: 90,000 _

Castiel stared at the sign with weary eyes. He had only been walking for a few hours, but coupled with paranoia and the effects of his heat taking a toll on his body, he was exhausted. All he wanted was to take a hot shower and curl up somewhere warm and safe where he didn’t have to worry about someone trying to fuck him into submission. 

When he walked down the street, Castiel drew the gaze of everyone around him. His homeless look stuck out like a sore thumb among the well dressed crowds, and his obvious condition made heads turn his way as he slunk through the shadows. While only alphas could smell his heat, his dewy skin, sweat stained clothes, and the gleam in his eyes made his current state obvious to anyone who took a seconds or two to look him over. 

After a few minutes of walking downtown, Castiel turned into an alleyway and jammed himself between a two dumpsters. The stench was suffocating to his newly heightened omega sense of smell, but at least it would mask the scent of his heat to any passing douchebag alphas. 

Mere seconds after situating himself in a moderately comfortable position, Castiel fell asleep. It was a fitful rest, interrupted every few minutes when he jerked awake, terrified and confused. When Castiel finally did fall into a deep slumber, his dreams were filled with barren, scorching deserts and dusty, dry riverbeds. 

 

Castiel awoke completely the next day when the sun was at about the noon point. He left the sanctuary of the dumpsters and slunk back onto the street, keeping his head down and his eyes on his feet. He could feel passerbys staring at him, and some even tried to stop him, but they all smelled like alphas, so Castiel ignored them. 

Lawrence was a nice city, filled with quaint shops and charming restaurants. He passed at least two bookstores, nose twitching when he smelled the books, but he didn’t go inside. His hands itched to flip through the pages and get lost in someone else’s life in anotherworld for a while, but he couldn’t bring himself to open the door and step across the threshold. He was certain that touching the books with his soiled fingers would ruin their stories forever, cover them in the smell of despair and the lingering scent of anguish. 

Castiel wondered what Zachariah would do if he knew where he was, wandering the streets of an unfamiliar city without two pennies to rub together. He imagined his uncle’s bugged out eyes, veins popping out of his forehead, and nearly smiled.

A cold wind whipped down the street, easily piercing the material of Castiel’s coat and chasing away his amusement. Lawrence certainly was safer than the open plains, but it smelled like exhaust fumes and was the perfect breeding place for short, freezing gusts of wind. Out on the prairie, the sun was warm and the breezes were balmy and carried a fresh scent. Here, the sun seemed distant and cold and the frigid winds brought with them a metallic smell, like old pennies. 

Castiel found himself inexplicably wishing Anna hadn’t overheard Zachariah’s conversation, that she hadn’t warned him, that he hadn’t left. Alpha construction diets were filled with protein rich-foods and their barracks were bordering on uncomfortably warm. There, at least, he would be well fed and comfortable. There, he would have been put with other omegas once he got his heat. 

There, he would have been safe. 

Unwilling to go any further, Castiel ducked under an overhang in front of a coffee shop. The window that made up the wall was set back, creating a small corner where the glass met the side of the brick building. He curled up there, among the gum wrappers and cigarette butts packed into the corner, and tucked his coat tighter around him.

His heat was getting steadily worse, a strange kind of painful need licking up his spine like flames. He was certain he had leaked through his pants by now and had probably created a damp spot on the ground. Hunger was tearing through his stomach walls, but it was nothing compared to the dryness that cracked the skin of his throat. 

Castiel didn’t sleep, but he pretended to. A few alphas stopped and stared at him, he made out their shapes from between his cracked eyelids, but they never stayed for long. 

Until _she_ came. 

He could smell her before she spoke, a sweet, smoky scent, like a campfire and molasses combined. 

“Hey, honey.” When Castiel didn’t respond, she huffed. “I know you’re not sleeping.”

Grudgingly, he opened his eyes. 

The alpha smiled with blood red lips. “Look at those pretty eyes. How has nobody claimed you yet, Clarence?”

“That’s not my name,” Castiel said flatly. 

She snorted in amusement. “What, do you live under a rock? Would it kill you to watch a movie, read a book?”

“That depends on the movie or book you’re referring to.” Castiel turned towards the wall. “Please leave me alone.” 

“What’s your name?”

Castiel remained silent. 

“Alright, then, you from around here?”

Not a word.

“Come on, Clarence, give me something to work with.”

“No.”

A sigh. “You do realize I’m trying to help you?”

“How could you possibly help me?”

The alpha grinned, shark-like, and Castiel got the feeling he had said something terribly wrong.

“Well,” she crouched down next to him. “I could take you home, peel off all those layers one by one, my own, beautiful little present.” She sidled closer until the length of her body was pressed up against Castiel’s, the smell of her pheromones clogging up his senses. “I could ride you until you broke, then eat out that dripping hole of yours, mark you from the inside out.”

A choked noise was wrung out of Castiel against his will, and the alpha’s grin grew even more predatory. She ran a long nailed hand up his thigh, cupping his crotch and kneading when she reached it. It was a display of dominance that his body reacted to, even if his mind revolted. Castiel felt blood rush to his cheeks at the same time it pooled in his cock. 

“Feels big,” the woman purred. 

“Please don’t,” Castiel whispered. He was too tired, to wrung out to fight back. Not surprisingly, the alpha completely ignored his plea. 

People continued to walk by, oblivious to Castiel’s plight. Even if they knew, he doubted they would help him.

“We should go somewhere more private,” the alpha whispered, breath fanning out warm and wet against his cheek. He turned his head away and tried to curl in on himself, but that just made her nails press sharply into him. 

“No?” She squeezed her hand even tighter and he flinched. “We could do it right here. Everyone would see that you belong to me.” 

A bell jingled.

“Fuck off, Meg.”

The intruding hand was suddenly gone, as was the warm body next to him. Castiel glanced up to see a man in the doorway of the coffee shop, arms crossed over his chest and eyes hard and glaring at the now-standing woman next to him. 

“You have no more right to him than I do,” the alpha hissed, baring her teeth in a subtle threat. 

“Leave,” the man said firmly. The woman continued to hold eye contact with him for at least a minute, a stand off of sorts, before she sneered and turned away.

“Didn’t want him that much, anyway,” she called over her shoulder as she walked away. “Too skinny.” 

The man continued to stare after the retreating alpha until she rounded the corner and disappeared. As soon as she was out of his sight, his body relaxed, shoulders dropping and his spine loosing some of its rigidity. He turned to Castiel. 

“You alright, man?”

“Yes,” Castiel said quietly. “Thank you.”

“Listen,” the man said, taking a step forward. “I really hate to do this, but you can’t stay h-” 

His nostrils flared sharply and he stopped talking, eyes locked onto Castiel’s as his pupils dilated into black pools faster than you could say _heat_. 

“ _Oh_ ,” he said, suddenly looking uncertain and awkward. 

Castiel said nothing. 

“Um, should I-…do you need a place to stay?”

Castiel frowned. A day or two ago, he might have said yes, but any innocence he may have had left had been thrown out the window. It was obvious by the reaction he had to Castiel’s scent and the sizable bulge in his jeans that he was an alpha. The last thing Castiel needed was for some other knothead to attack him while he was sleeping, especially one as big and intimidating as this one. 

The frustration that had been mounting in him finally snapped, morphing quickly into a cold, calculated anger and overpowering his exhaustion. He was a person with thoughts and feelings too, not a fuck toy for alphas to use as they wanted. 

“No thank you,” Castiel said curtly. “I think I can manage.” He pushed himself to his feet, trying to put himself at a better height to turn down an alpha at, but his legs nearly gave out from under him and he swayed where he stood, threatening to topple over.

“Woah.” The man’s hand shot out and grasped Castiel strongly by the shoulder to steady him. “Easy there, tiger. You sure you’ll be okay?”

“Don’t touch me,” Castiel snapped, yanking his arm out of the alpha’s grasp. The man threw his hands up in a surrender position, taking a step away from Castiel before he dropped them again. 

“I’m serious, man. I’ve got a spare bedroom and it looks like you need somewhere safe to stay for a little while.”

Castiel paused. That wasn't right. “Spare bedroom?” he repeated. 

“Yeah, why would-” the alpha’s eyes grew wide. “Oh. No, no I didn’t mean-…fuck.” He fumbled around in his leather jacket for a second, withdrawing a badge flipping it open. “I’m a fucking police officer, okay? Jesus, I wasn’t going to-…shit, man, no.” 

The alpha let Castiel take the badge and inspect it. After he was satisfied, he handed it back. 

“Why should I trust you?”

“You shouldn’t,” he shrugged, tucking the badge back into his coat. “I’m sure you’ve experienced first hand how much alphas can be dickheads.”

Castiel scoffed. “You’re not making a very strong argument.”

“How ‘bout this, I’ll show you around, and you decide if you want to stay or not.”

Castiel nodded and the alpha motioned for him to follow, going back into the coffee shop. A few pairs of eyes flicked towards them, but the man inclined his head and gave them a smirk and they turned back to their drinks and donuts. 

“Hey Adam,” the alpha called, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the café. A sandy-headed kid popped out from behind a set of double doors, ones that presumably led to the kitchen. He wiped his floury hands on his waist apron before brushing the white power off onto the floor.

“Yeah?”

“Make sure Dad knows where I am, ‘kay?”

Adam nodded hesitantly, gaze flicking back and forth between Castiel and the alpha, nostrils flaring as he scented the air. Two alphas. Great. 

“Do you want me to make sure, uh, no one disturbs you?” Adam asked, lowering his voice at the last part of the sentence and leaning a few inches closer. 

“No,” the alpha said, glaring at Adam. “We’re not-…I’m just giving him a place to stay.”

“Oh.” Adam blinked in surprised, then grinned sheepishly. “Well, in that case…” 

The kid reached behind the display case and pulled out a chocolate muffin, whipping a paper bag through the air to open it before putting the muffin inside and handing it to Castiel. “On the house.” 

A swirl of gratitude swelled between his lungs as Castiel accepted the offering, clutching it close to his chest and inhaling the sweet aroma of freshly baked food.

“Thank you,” he said softly, and Adam nodded in reply before disappearing back into the kitchen.

“My half brother,” the alpha said as he started steering Castiel away towards a door that read "Authorized Personal Only." “He’s a little…well, he assumes a lot.”

“It was a logical assumption,” Castiel said. He was more preoccupied with the muffin warming his chest than the fact that Adam thought they were going to sleep together.

The door swung open to reveal a flight of cement stairs, illuminated by a single, bare bulb that flickered weakly a few times before turning completely on. It hummed with the electricity passing through it, so loud that Castiel could hear the noise over the sound of their footsteps ascending the stairs. 

“I’m Dean, by the way,” the alpha said as they reached the top of the staircase, coming upon another door.

“Castiel.”

Dean fished a key out of his coat pocket and unlocked the door, allowing it to swing inwards before he stepped inside himself.

“Come on in,” he said, ushering Castiel into the apartment. “I think I have a few beers in the fridge, you want one?”

“I don’t drink.”

Dean narrowed his eyes at Castiel. It wasn’t a suspicious glare, but rather a calculating one. 

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” Castiel replied, and Dean whistled.

“You got seventeen years of freedom before your first heat? You lucky little shit.” Dean shucked his leather coat and tossed it over a chair, momentarily disappearing before he returned with a beer and a water bottle.

“Heads up,” he said, tossing the water to Castiel. Castiel caught it and cracked the cap gratefully, thirst not forgotten. “I got went into my first rut when I was eleven.” Dean chuckled, shaking his head. “That was _not_ fun.”

“I would rather be in your shoes,” Castiel said flatly as he raised the bottle to his mouth. “My uncle was going to send me to an alpha construction camp to “cure my neutrality.’” 

Castiel closed his eyes as he gulped the water. The cool liquid soothed the burning itchiness of his throat and filled with stomach with a coldness that felt amazing against the fever of his heat. He could feel Dean staring at him as he drained the bottle, throat working furiously until it was empty.

A small noise echoed in the silent room and Castiel opened one eye, immediately focusing on Dean. The alpha was staring unblinkingly at him with pupils so wide they had swallowed up his whole iris, cheeks flushed and licking his dry lips.

“Sorry,” Dean said, a little breathlessly. “That was just, um….” Castiel could smell him from across the room, scent getting stronger the longer they held eye contact. Unlike the other alpha’s Castiel had encountered, Dean’s scent wasn’t unpleasant or overpowering. He was spring rain and coriander and fresh apple pie with a light undertone of engine grease. Castiel found himself leaning forward, trying to take a deeper whiff.

“Okay,” Dean said, his gravelly voice just a notch lower than it had been before. “I’m just gonna-…I’ll go set your room up. There’s more water in the fridge, if you want. I’ll be…in the….yeah.” He inched backward, spluttering out a few more words before practically fled from the room, half finished beer forgotten on the table beside the armchair and accidentally slamming is hip on the doorframe as he left. 

Castiel took a deep breath, trying to calm his pounding heart. He had to get a grip. Just because he was in heat didn’t mean he had to just throw himself at the nearest alpha. To distract himself from the lingering smell of Dean, Castiel pulled out the muffin Adam had gave him and took a bite.

Before he could stop himself, he moaned at the taste and texture. It was still warm and slightly gooey in the center, with the perfect balance between richness and sweetness. As he was eating, Castiel allowed himself to take in the room around him.

It was obvious Dean lived alone, car magazines and empty beer bottles strewn around the room in a fashion that no partner would abide for. All his furniture was either second hand or very old, well worn and stained in various places. 

The whole place smelled like Dean and beer and car oil and home. Castiel’s house had smelled like cleanliness and air freshener, a fake, stale smell that he had never really grown used to. The kitchen had smelled like dish soap and the sheets had smelled like detergent and his clothes had smelled like fabric softener. 

Here, in a small apartment above a bakery, Castiel felt more at home than he did back in the place where he had lived his whole life. He could hear the gentle lull of the café chatter murmuring beneath him and the fridge humming and Dean cursing about sheets in the other room but the whole disarrayed scene had this feel about it. 

Castiel helped himself to two more water bottles before Dean came back, holding a bloody paper towel to his bicep and scowling.

“Don’t open the closet,” he said, offering no more explanation as he swung Castiel’s duffel up onto his shoulder and stomped back into the bedroom. 

The bedroom was small, much smaller than Castiel’s back at the manor, and a few tall stacks of boxes were shoved into the corner. When Dean saw Castiel staring at them, he rubbed the back of his neck and grinned apologetically.

“I don’t get many visitors, so I usually use this room for storage."

“It’s fine,” Castiel said. “Thank you.” 

“Oh yeah, and…” Dean reached under the bed and pulled out a box. “There’s some shit in here you’ll probably want. You’re about…” he paused to inhale deeply. “Two or three days in?”

Castiel nodded.

“Right. Well, it’s gonna get worse. All of the stuff is new, so don’t worry about germs or anything. Bathroom’s off the living room if you wanna shower. There’s food in the fridge and if you need anything, just give me a call at work.” Dean scribbled down a number on the pad of paper beside the bed. “I think that’s it.” 

“Thank you,” Castiel said quietly. “For everything.”

Dean licked his lips and cleared his throat, looking away as his nostrils flared. Dean had an incredible amount of self control, being this close to an omega in heat for so long and not even making an advance. He was even keeping his posture in check, making sure to keep his arms by his side and his head was tipped at a neutral angle, not even working a growl into any of his words. Most alphas didn’t try to control their dominance displays when they were going about their daily business, much less around fertile omegas. 

“It’s no problem, man. I really have to go now though, so I guess I’ll see you tonight.”

Castiel nodded. “I guess,” he echoed. 

 

He was planning on taking a shower. Truly, he was. But then suddenly he woke up, without remembering falling asleep, with the clock on the bedside table telling him he’d somehow lost four hours in the process.

Seconds after his eyes blinked open in confusion, Castiel was slammed with what could only be described as a wall of sensation. Suddenly, the sheets were too soft and too scratchy at the same time, the air was too heavy to breathe, and his skin erupted in goosebumps as a cold sweat slicked his heated skin. Blinking did nothing to clear his blurred vision and digging his fingers into his ears didn’t stop the ringing that was piercing them.

Groaning, Castiel rolled off the bed, only to collapse onto the floor when his legs didn’t hold his weight. He would have stayed there, content to curl into a fetal position and squeeze his eyes shut, if it wasn’t for all the dust. He could feel the particles clawing their way up his nose every time his took a breath, and it only got worse if his inhaled through his mouth, the dust filling his lungs and clinging to his throat. 

A shower. A shower would help.

Castiel managed to shove himself to his feet and, with the aid of the wall, trudged to the bathroom. The cool tile felt slick and hard under his slippery feet and he left damp patches where he stepped, part sweat, part slick that had dripped down his legs.

While he stripped down, Castiel waited for the water to heat up. Every time he stuck his hand under it, it felt freezing, even though there was steam billowing up around him and fogging up the mirror and floor. Only when he cranked the heat gauge up to the highest level did the water feel warm enough.

They were called heats for a reason. 

The steam from the shower made it even harder to breathe, but it cooled the fire raging inside of him. Oils from Castiel’s body made the water shimmer as if tiny rainbows were trapped inside the droplets. 

Being so sheltered his whole life- not going to public school really made it hard to socialize with others your age- meant Castiel was somewhat hesitant about this whole heat thing. He knew the mechanics of what was happening to his body, of course- fertileness causing his muscles to relax to make him weaker and therefore less likely to refuse a strong mate as well as more receptive to an alpha’s knot, scent glands going into overdrive to attract a mate, and internal temperature skyrocketing to provide an optimal environment for conception- but it was the whole _sex_ thing that threw him for a spin.

He had never even watched porn, only touching himself if he woke up from a dream with a painfully hard erection. His family was extremely religious, and he had been told from a young age that masturbation was a form of sin. Now that he was older, he knew better, but going without pleasure for so long meant he never felt a particularly strong need for it.

But in the throes of heat, with want screaming in every fiber of his body, the last thing he wanted was to _not_ wring pleasure from his body. 

Castiel picked up the conditioner and squeezed some into his hand before reaching down to spread it onto half-hard cock. The sensation made him shudder, and he bit his lip to hold back a groan when he started moving his hand. 

His legs started wobbling again, so Castiel threw his forearm against the wall in front of him and leaned on it, resting his forehead on the tiles. He could actually _feel_ every little crease in his hand on the skin of his cock in this state, and that just mounted his pleasure. Castiel squeezed his eyes shut and gasped for air as he tightened his hand, adding a twist to the top of every stroke.

The submissive part of his mind urged him to imagine another hand in place of his own slender one, a hand with close cut nails and callused fingerpads stained black with engine grease. He imagined a larger, thicker body pressed up behind him, unoccupied hand grasping his hip tightly, and full lips whispering heated words into his ear. He imagined hot, open mouthed kisses pressed to the back of his neck and the light drag of teeth across his nape, catching on the skin and marking it red.

It was the last thought that set him off, pushed him over the precipice with a cry as he splattered the wall in front of him with come. He felt his hole pulse and produce an ungodly amount of slick, oozing down his leg before it was washed away by the water.

When the last shuddering aftershocks of his climax stopped wracking his body, Castiel opened his eyes. His gaze immediately landed on the wall, blood rising to his cheeks when he saw his come painted there in strips of white. He quickly wiped the evidence of his orgasm away and kicked the water pooling around his feet towards the drain until it was all gone. His chest heaved, greedily sucking in the water-logged air around him, as he waited for the ebb of the need inside him.

It never came. If anything, it just got stronger. Sure, the orgasm was good, but it wasn’t what his body craved. Castiel glared down at his softening cock and pounded his fist weakly against the wall, frustrated now along with crazed. 

Turning off the water, Castiel ripped open the shower curtain, only to be hit with a freezing blast of air and quickly pulled it shut again. He didn’t want to put his dirty clothes back on, and his clean ones were in the bedroom. That meant making it across the apartment with nothing on his wet body. 

Steeling himself, Castiel leapt out of the shower, gathered up his clothes in his arms, and yanked open the door. It was even colder outside, steam billowing out in a great cloud along with all the heat, and he walked as quickly as he could through the living room and down the hallway to the spare bedroom. 

By the time he got there, he was a shivering wreck- teeth chattering, limbs shaking, goosebumps standing so prominent on his skin that he was sure they would stay there permanently. Without even bothering to get clothes on- he would just leak through them anyway- Castiel launched himself into the bed and pulled the blankets tightly around him.

It took ten minutes for him to heat up again and now there was sweat dripping down his body, pooling behind his knees, under his arms, and in the small of his back and shadow of his spine. The water in his hair never really dried out, rather was just replaced with sweat.

All the books he had read, websites he had visited, and always focused strictly on the scientific facts. What was happening to his body and why, clear questions and answers. They have never mentioned how it would make him feel as a _person_ , never even touched on how helpless and weak he would be with wave after wave of heat rolling over his body. 

He understood, now, why so many omegas allowed themselves to be taken by alphas or betas they didn’t particularly care for, to submit to the wishes and needs of a dominant role and allow society to treat them like objects. The prospect of facing this alone, of being uncared for while in such a vulnerable state, terrified Castiel. Simply thinking about being on the streets made him shudder with something more than cold, fear wracking him to the very bones. He thanked whatever God might be out there that he chose this particular coffee shop to sit in front of, that Dean was the one to offer him help.

_Dean_. A fresh wave of hotness swept over him at the thought of the alpha’s green eyes and the power that had been shimmering in them when he stared Meg down, the strength that had been in the line of his shoulders, the challenging, upward tilt of his chin. Dean was strong, compassionate, and loyal, the perfect candidate for a good mate and father.

Castiel’s eyes flew open.

Mate?

_Father?_

No, no no _no_. Bad brain. Bad hormones. He had known Dean for less than twenty four hours, there was no way he was considering mating with him, and absolutely no possible way he was considering _bearing his children_. In a world where females were considered primary child-bearers, fertile male omegas were at the rock bottom of the social pyramid, looked down upon even by other male omegas. He wouldn’t submit himself to that kind of persecution just because his hormones were on a rampage. 

But, he had to admit, the thought of children sent a zing down Castiel’s spine that had nothing to do with heats or hormones or omegas. He had always known he wanted children, had already been picking out names by the age of eight. When he had been too young to know better, Castiel would play with Anna’s baby dolls, feeding them and bathing them and rocking them to sleep. Children had always been in his agenda, he had just never considered being the one to carry them.

Castiel pressed a hand to his lower abdomen, imagining it softer and swollen with life. The possibility of creating something like that thrilled him in a way he never thought it would. 

Maybe there was something good about being an omega. When the time came, with the right mate, there could definitely be a positive side to this. 

Castiel drifted off with that thought comforting his addled mind. 

 

A loud crash made Castiel shoot up into a sitting position, fully upright before he was even awake, adrenaline pumping through his veins and heart trying to break free of his ribcage. 

Dean was standing in the doorway, left foot clutched between his hands and biting his bottom lip, obviously barely restraining himself from letting loose a string of curses. A box was sitting at his feet, but in the darkness of the night, Castiel couldn’t make out what was inside it.

“Dean?” he slurred, wincing when the sleep-heavy words clawed his throat on the way out. “What’re you doin’?”

“Sorry,” Dean said. “You were shivering and I was going to cover you with more blankets without waking you up, but,” he motioned to the box, “that plan kind of crashed and burned.”

“Oh.” Castiel flopped back down, immediately regretting it when the springs in the bed squeaked violently in his ears, and pulled the blankets back up around him to cover his naked chest. He was suddenly very aware of his nude state, watching Dean carefully from the corner of his eye as the alpha approached the bed with the extra blankets. 

“Do you want me to take these?” Dean asked, hand skimming across the blankets. They were soaked with Castiel’s heat fluids by now, and- if Dean’s flaring nostrils and rapidly dilating pupils were anything to go by- reeked of him, too. “I could wash them.”

“No!” Castiel grasped the blankets in his hands and tugged them higher up his body, twitching when Dean yanked his hand away as if he had been burned. “I’m don’t-…I’m not wearing any….” He stopped, already having said too much.

Dean’s eyes raked slowly down Castiel’s blanket covered body, like a predator eyeing its prey, and Castiel curled tighter into himself. There was nothing stopping Dean from ripping off the blankets and taking him right there, though if he really wanted to, clothes wouldn’t have impeded him much either. 

A tiny, dark corner of Castiel’s brain, one that he squashed immediately, jumped at the idea. Dean glanced at Castiel in confusion when he flushed and ducked his head under the blanket, remembering the images he had conjured up when in the shower the day before. 

The last thing he expected was the gentle weight of another blanket being laid across him, then another, and another. Dean was silent as he layered five blankets on top of the ones already on the bed, kicking the box under the mattress when he was done.

“Do you want more water?”

“Please,” Castiel croaked. 

Dean came back with a glass and a pitcher, filling the glass before handing it to Castiel and setting the jug on the bedside table. Castiel accepted the cup scooted up enough to sip the water without choking, but not enough to expose his chest. Dean turned to leave, but before he could, Castiel spoke.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked softly, eyes lowered and words whispered into the glass more than they were directed at Dean. “Why are you helping me?”

The mattress dipped as Dean sat on the edge, careful to keep away from Castiel’s feet. 

“The world’s a fucked up place,” he said simply. “Helping people’s a way to make it better.” 

“You could just donate to charity,” Castiel said dryly, immediately chastising himself for the comment. Why should he question the help he was receiving?

Dean smirked. “I could.” His hand closed around a pendant hanging from twine cord on his neck and he ran his thumb over it, contemplating how to respond. Castiel subconsciously fingered his own necklace as he watched. 

“My brother,” he said finally. “He’s an omega. I learned pretty damn early that all the crap about omegas being weak was bullshit. When we were young we…well, we moved around a lot, my dad and my brother and me. Every time we went to a new town, Sammy had to convince people he wasn’t just going to roll over and let people order him around. 

“His dream was always to be a lawyer, and everyone always told him it was impractical.” Dean scoffed. “If there’s one word that’s not in Sam’s dictionary, it’s impractical. They were always telling him that he should find a nice dominant, settle down, start a family. He fought to get into college, fought to stay in college, and he’s been still fighting ever since.” He grinned, face filled with pride. “Sam’s one of the best, now, top at his league.”

“You’re very proud of him,” Castiel said. It wasn’t a question.

Dean nodded. “He would kill me if I ever said anything rolist. It’s just…wrong, y’know? Making assumptions about someone ‘cause of their biology is just as bad as being sexist or racist.”

“So you help omegas often?” Castiel would never admit it, but the thought made his blood turn green with jealously. The idea of another omega sleeping in this bed, of receiving Dean’s care, made him envious beyond words.

To his surprise, Dean shook his head. “Not just omegas. Anyone who needs it.” 

“Oh.” At a loss for something, to say, Castiel carefully sipped his water. Drinking too fast made his stomach feel like it was boiling. His brain neatly filed away the story, adding _selfless_ to the list of qualities that made Dean a perfect m-

“Did you eat?” 

Castiel blinked a few times, startled out of his thought process. “I-…I _think_ so.”

Dean laughed. It was a rich, full sound that had Castiel’s lip turning up in response. “You can’t remember?”

He shrugged. “I was a bit preoccupied with the fact that it felt like my skin was melting off my body.”

Dean nodded solemnly, but the depths of his eyes still twinkled with amusement. “Understandable. I’ll make soup.”

“You don’t have to,” Castiel blurted, feeling like he had to say _something_ , at least _try_ to stop this train wreck before it happened. “I mean, you’ve done so much…”

“Dude, all I have to do is open a can and dump it into a pot. It’s not like I’m hiking across the world to pick wild tomatoes from the slopes of the Alps.”

“Wild tomatoes don’t grow on the Alps,” Castiel mumbled.

“Smartass,” Dean said, thwacking the end of the bed with his hand good-naturedly. “Crackers or toast?”

 

Dean totally lied about the canned part. Castiel had sampled every brand of canned tomato soup (nobody in his family was really the nesting, culinary skilled type) and this was _not_ preserved. 

“Liar,” Castiel said after the first spoonful, and Dean just grinned and shrugged.

“Okay, so it’s not canned. I had leftovers, sue me.” 

_Culinary_ , his brain whispered, _dedicated_ , but Castiel ignored it. 

They ate in silence for a few minutes, Castiel’s bowl cradled in his lap and Dean’s cupped in his heads, sipping it from the bowl instead of using a spoon.

“So what about you?” Dean finally said. “A lot of omegas in your family?”

Castiel frowned at his soup, stirring it with his spoon. Little chunks of cracker that had broken off rose to the surface and he scooped them up. “I’m the only one.”

“The _only one_?” Dean repeated, astonished. “You must be shitting me.”

“I’m not. The Novak line is esteemed for its alpha heritage.”

“Wait, wait.” Dean put his soup down and leaned a fraction of an inch closer. “Novak? Like, _Gabriel_ Novak?”

Castiel’s frowned deepened. “Yes. He’s my brother.”

A breathless chuckle escaped Dean’s lips. “Son of a bitch.”

“Do you know him?” Castiel asked urgently, suddenly overwhelmed with the need to _know_ what happened to his candy-loving brother. “Dean, do you know him?”

“Not personally.”

Castiel huffed in irritation. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ll show you.”

The bowl in Castiel’s lap tipped when Dean got up from the bed, but he paid no attention to the soup that sloshed onto his skin. He would sweat it off in minutes, anyway. Hypothetical information about his brother, on the other hand, was fast overshadowing his heat symptoms. 

Dean came back with a TV guide clutched in his hand, and flipped it open before tossing it to Castiel. He caught it and turned it around, eyes skimming over the show guide in a search for his brother’s name.

“The picture in the top right.”

Castiel’s eyes immediately jumped to the top right corner of the page and his breath caught in his throat. There, with his arms slung over two other men’s shoulders, was Gabriel, smiling the same cocky grin he wore when Castiel knew him. 

“Show’s called _Changing Channels_ ,” Dean said, returning to his position on the end of the bend. “It’s cool. Gabriel and his buddies are stuck in their TV; every episode is them in a different show. They have to figure out their roles in the show and play them in order to get to the next show. Supposedly, if they make it through enough shows, they can get out.”

“It was his dream,” Castiel said softly, fingers gently touching his brother’s smiling face. “To be an actor.”

“You act like you haven’t seen him in a decade.”

“I haven’t. Zachariah disowned him when he left and I wasn’t allowed to talk to him.”

Dean’s face hardened. “No one should be kept from their siblings.” 

Castiel shrugged. “It’s the same for two more of my brothers. Zachariah didn’t approve of their activities and I wasn’t allowed to talk to them.”

Dean opened his mouth to say something else, but at that moment Castiel’s heat rushed forward and he closed his eyes against the sudden onslaught of smells, namely Dean’s.

“Dean,” he said weakly. “Please leave.”

“What?” Dean’s scent suddenly grew stronger, increasing in reaction to Castiel’s. “Oh. Yeah, sure.” He took Castiel’s soup bowl before he left, shutting the door behind him.

Castiel had to fight with his instincts not to call Dean back in, to throw the covers from his body and roll over present himself to his alpha and lure him into his body. 

No. Not _his_. Dean was not _his_ and he was not _Dean’s_. He would not offer his body up like some kind of prize or bribe. Dean was a level headed alpha, but that didn’t mean he would be able to resist the pull of a presenting, fertile omega. In fact, Castiel was almost certain that it was impossible for an unclaimed alpha to resist that sight. He’d rather not test his boundaries. 

The extra blankets Dean had brought weren’t helping. They smelled like him, like his delicious heady aroma, and Castiel allowed himself the small consolation of burying his face in one of them. The scent of an alpha did little to soothe his heat, but little was better than nothing, so he took what he could get. 

Castiel wished he could call Anna, tell her everything that had happened and that he felt. She would offer sound, unbiased advice, point him in the right direction. He had always counted on Anna to help him make big decisions, and without her guidance he felt lost. His big sister would know what to do in this situation; she _always_ knew what to do. 

He sighed and tucked his face further into the blankets. 

 

Dean was gone when he woke up and sunlight was streaming through the window. His heat felt a little bit better, or maybe it was just the fact that Castiel had gotten used to it. At least now he could walk without collapsing.

The pasty smells drifting up from the coffee shop below should smell good, but all it was doing was making Castiel inexplicably nauseous and starving at the same time. Instead of eating, Castiel showered and dressed, figuring he was well enough to watch TV instead of lying in bed all day. He dragged more than half the blankets from his bed and curled up on the couch with them, flipping through the channels to find something that sparked his interest. 

According to the TV guide, Gabriel’s show wasn’t on until 9, so he settled on some nature documentary about bees. Castiel didn’t really pay attention, drifting off into a thought process even he couldn’t keep up with, one that jumped from bees to the creation of cheese to the chemical equation to make sex hormones to lines from Hamlet. 

By the end of the documentary, Castiel was shivering again, and could feel the blankets beneath him soaking up his sweat and slick. Out of consideration for Dean’s couch, Castiel shut off the TV and moved back to the bed. There, he didn’t have to worry about permanently staining the cushions or spreading his scent all over the apartment. 

God, how he wished he could take suppressants. It was dangerous, though, to take them during your first heat, and Castiel didn’t want to risk infertility. Although infertility were sounding more inviting by the minute if this was only the third day in what would probably be a six or seven day cycle. 

The need was back stronger than before. It was like a tide, ebbing off for a little bit before coming back full force and crippling him, reducing him to a slave of his body. A constant litany of _mate breed fuck_ cycled through his brain, interrupting more rational thoughts and giving Castiel a headache. A small part of him, the part that was still sane, was glad Dean was at work. If he was here, if Castiel had to smell him, he doubted he would be able to resist the alpha.

Castiel rolled on his side and tucked his legs and arms into his body in a fetal position, snuffling against the blankets that were starting to smell less like Dean and more like him. He blinked blearily, spinning vision not really focusing on anything, until he saw the box.

Head perking up, Castiel considered it. Dean had told him whatever was inside would help him, and Dean had shown he was trustworthy so far. Reaching out, Castiel managed to pull it towards him without getting out of bed, and he flipped off the cover to inspect the contents. 

Castiel’s eyes widened when he saw what was inside, a strange mixture of arousal and fear rising up inside him. The box was filled with toys… _sex_ toys. He had heard about them in theory, but never considered _using_ them. There were four toys in the box, all still in their original packaging, and scattered between them were a few packets of lube and a handful of condoms.

Two of the toys were dildos. One of them was made of glass, at least eight inches long, with a smooth, bulbous head and a thread of blue spiraling around the shaft. Castiel licked his lips and felt a drop of slick drip from his hole. The second was shorter, but it was thicker and had a swollen base that was probably meant to simulate a knot. It faded from bright pink at the end, to orange in the middle, and black at the bottom. There was a slit in the top, like it was supposed to have something squirted out of it, and Castiel didn’t dwell on what that something might be, instead letting his attention drift to the remaining objects.

The last two toys were shaped somewhat like the dildos, but they didn’t look exactly the same. One of them was much smaller, only the length of his hand, and looked like it was a glass pinecone stuck on top of stick. The last one resembled an ice cream cone made of blue plastic, and was connected to a remote of some sort.

Frowning in confusion, Castiel picked up the remote, careful to keep his fingers away from the toys, and pushed the grooved circle with his thumb that turned it on, exposed by the _Try Me!_ slit in the plastic packaging. The toy started buzzing, vibrating in the box and sending the condoms and packets of lube jumping around and knocking against the other toys.

Castiel felt his eyes grow impossibly wider and he hastily shut off the toy, slammed the lid back onto the box, and pushed it as far away from the bed as possible. He may be desperate, but he wasn’t _that_ desperate.

But the toys got him thinking. He hadn’t considered that part of his body when masturbating in the shower, which was stupid of him, really. He was in _heat_ , aching because he was fertile, not because he was sexually frustrated. 

Curious now, Castiel slipped his hand down the back sweatpants he was wearing, fingers slipping through sweat and slick, and ran the tip of his index finger down his crack. When he brushed hesitantly against his hole, a lightning bolt of pleasure tore through his body and he gasped, pulling his hand away hastily. He had never touched himself there before, and had no idea what would feel good and what wouldn’t. That one, quick touch had felt amazing, but it scared him.It was too new, too different.

Castiel’s life had been built on tradition and custom and routine. New things came few and far between, and when they did, he was usually guided through it with detailed instructions. The past few days, it felt like his mind was unraveling, fraying at the edges from the complete 180 his existence had taken. Now, everything was his decision, his choice, and the consequences of those actions were his to bear and his alone. No longer could anyone else shoulder the blame responsibility for him, it was all up to him.

The next few hours were spent in a miserable state of half consciousness, drifting through the agonizing fever that seemed to be his life now. Castiel could feel himself drying from the inside out, but the glass Dean had given him the night before was gone, along with the pitcher. Every time he tried to get out of bed, his knees gave out, sending him crashing to the floor and shivering so hard his teeth knocked together. It took him several minutes to drag himself back into the bed and after a few tries, he gave up.

Castiel started to hallucinate, seeing his brothers and sisters standing around his bed. They spoke to him, some offering words of comfort and others snide comments about his condition. 

“Water,” Castiel rasped to them. “Please.”

Anna gave him a pitying look and patted his hand, her touch frigid compared to his boiling skin.

“We can’t, Castiel,” she said. “We’re not real.”

He groaned and tucked his head under the blankets, hoping they would go away if he ignored them, but that just made their voices louder and touches more insistent. He tried to tell them to go away, to leave him alone, but all that climbed out of his throat was a wheezing whine. It felt like his throat was bleeding, raw and cracking like the land of a desert. He imagined the cracks spreading throughout his entire body, organs splitting and spurting blood.

The hallucinations started getting more vivid, and soon he wasn’t even in the bedroom anymore. He was lying on the back of a rushing river, a waterfall tumbling cool, fresh water down into the stream just feet from him, but every time Castiel reached towards it with his hand or dipped his head into the river, the water level would drop or the waterfall would scoot over a few inches, always remaining tantalizingly out of his grasp.

“Castiel?” 

Castiel frowned. The water was talking. That was ridiculous. Water didn’t talk. But, then again, it didn’t shrink from his touch, either.

“You okay?”

 _No!_ Castiel tried to say, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could barely even breath. He opened his mouth to try and force the answer out, but his lips cracked and started bleeding, red beading on his lips and zinging the taste of blood through his mouth. 

“Holy shi-… Cas!” 

Abruptly, Castiel was yanked into a sitting position, fingers entangling in his sweaty hair to tilt his head back, and something was pressed to his lips. On instinct, he opened them, and was rewarded with a rush of something cool and wet slipping past his lips. It wasn’t water, definitely wasn’t water, but it didn’t _matter_ , because it was landing in his stomach and filling in the cracks in his body and washing the away the blood that had leaked out of them.

Castiel peeled his eyes open and was met with blackness. Nothing. Frantically, his eyes darted back and forth, searching for any sort of silhouette in the absolutely darkness.

“Cas? You with me, buddy?”

“Dean?” Castiel rasped, reaching out with a damp hand, too damp to possibly belong to his dry body, and touched a strong arm, muscles tight and taunt under the skin. That arm belonged to Dean, there was no mistaking his scent. “Dean, why is it so dark?”

“You… you can’t see me?”

Shaking his head, Castiel bit his lip and felt tears well in his eyes. Dean cursed under his breath, the muscle in his arm contracting as he did. Castiel couldn’t worry about that now, not when he could already feel the drink Dean had given him seeping out through his pores. 

“Please, Dean,” he wheezed. “Water.”

“Right, yeah…”

Heavy footfalls left the room quickly, coming back not ten seconds later. The sound of water pouring into a glass was music to Castiel’s ears, and he reached out greedily, groping out in the air until a cup was pressed into his hand. 

He emptied the glass and held it out for Dean to refill. And he did it again. And again. And again. Castiel lost track of how many cups he drained, eyes squeezed shut at the goodness of it all, even though it didn’t matter. 

Finally, Castiel put the glass down on the bedside table, stomach so full he didn’t think he could drink more if he wanted to. 

“Cas.” Dean sat down on the bed next to him and put his hands on either side of Castiel’s face. Castiel jerked away from the touch at first, certain Dean was going to use his sightlessness against him, that the other shoe was finally going to drop, but stilled when all Dean did was make a shushing noise and brush his thumbs over Castiel’s cheekbones. 

“Open your eyes,” Dean murmured. One of his thumbs smeared something wet across Castiel’s cheek that was defiantly not sweat. He tried to turn his face away, ashamed of his tears. 

“No,” Castiel whispered. He didn’t want to see nothing but blackness again. With his eyes closed, he could pretend that he saw nothing of his own will, that the darkness was normal. 

“It’s alright, Cas, just open up.” 

Slowly, ever so slowly, Castiel opened his eyes. 

It wasn’t dark. In fact, it was too bright. The whole room was bathed in a painful white light and Castiel had to blink several times before it came into focus, whitewash fading into beautiful, beautiful colors.

Dean let out a long breath when Castiel’s eyes found his own, flashing a grin that didn’t seem comforting as much as relieved. Before Castiel knew what was going on, Dean had slipped one of his hands behind his head to cup the base of his skull and the other dropped to wrap around his back as Dean pulled him in for a hug.

“Why the hell didn’t you call me, man?” he asked softly. 

Castiel chuckled breathlessly, smiling down at his arms that had hugged Dean back. “I didn’t have a phone.”

“You didn’t have a-…oh for fuck’s sake.”

The sensation of Dean’s strong arms wrapped around him was soothing, a balm to the confusion of his heat and dislodging the terror that had latched itself to a spot in his chest. His scent washed over Castiel in gentle waves, slowing the frenzied beating of his heart and the pounding of blood through his veins. 

_Protective_ , his brain hissed. _He protected you,_ saved _you_. 

Castiel buried those thoughts so deep even Death himself couldn’t bring them back to life. 

Seeking a stronger smell of his scent, Castiel turned his face into Dean’s jaw and inhaled deeply, nose pressed into one of his scent glands. It was a fragrance he would never get tired of, even if he was to smell it for ever second of every day for the rest of his life.

Dean froze, going completely still in Castiel’s arms, before gently untangling himself from Castiel's insistent limbs and standing up. He didn’t look disturbed or disgusted, but rather a second away from snapping. Honestly, he lasted longer than Castiel had expected, being that close, _touching_ him for that long, must have been torture.

“Thank you,” Castiel said, and he meant it. He had never been one for physical contact, but he was finding that he craved it more and more. It might have been because of his heat hormones, or maybe because he was finally around people that weren’t in his family, but a simple hug was enough to pull him back from a panic attack. 

That small voice in the back of his head, the one that Castiel continued to ignore, suggested that it wasn’t the hug itself, but rather the fact that the hug was from _Dean_. 

Dean reached out towards Castiel face, hand stopping inches away and hesitating.

“Can I...?” Without knowing what the question was, Castiel nodded.

The very tips of Dean’s finger glided across Castiel’s face, feather-light and soft. They traced his jaw, skimmed over the bridge of his nose, smoothed over his eyebrows, and traced nonsensical patterns on his forehead before brushing the sweaty hair away from his face in such a tender gesture that Castiel’s bottom lip trembled. The air around them was full of intimacy and swollen with unspoken words, and Castiel felt suddenly claustrophobic, confined to this room, this bed, breathing the intimate air and sharing his life with Dean. 

Before he could voice his emotions, though, Dean swooped down, pecked a quick kiss on his glimmering forehead, and left the room.

Castiel blinked and raised hand to his face, fingers ghosting over where Dean’s had been moments before, and ended where his lips had touched his skin. The place was cool to his fingers, chilled by the press of Dean’s flesh against his, and Castiel felt it gradually warming up beneath his finger pads.

He was fighting a loosing battle.

 

Castiel drifted off after that, lulled to sleep by the memory of Dean’s embrace, and only awoke again when he heard the shower running. Immediately, he pictured Dean’s nostrils flaring as he walked into the bathroom, pupils dilating as he picked up the scent of Castiel’s release. He pictured Dean growing hard under the spray of water, jacking himself off in the very same position Castiel had been in, groaning Castiel’s name under his breath when he came. The thought made him flush and shift, but at least a galloon of slick didn’t leak onto the bed this time. 

This was the fourth day of his heat, and he could feel the boiling in his blood slowly draining out of him. He had to be even more careful around Dean now, a fertile, unclaimed omega falling from heat would unleash Dean’s more animalistic side, the alpha in him not wanting to let a perfectly good chance to breed go to waste. 

When Castiel was sure that Dean was gone, he allowed himself to drift off back to sleep. It was a deep sleep, unperturbed by nightmares or fits of fever, and Castiel slept the day away. 

His fever was stronger than in the morning when he opened his eyes, but that was expected. A last hooray, you could say.

What Castiel _didn’t_ expect was the _itch_ underneath his skin, constant and sharp,like the tingle of a limb falling asleep. It was hard to describe, less like the need he had felt before and more like an irritating prickling he couldn’t stop. 

No matter what was he tossed and turned, the sensation didn’t go away. He stretched and twisted and curled and flailed, but nothing worked. 

Sighing in exasperation, Castiel flopped on his side and scowled.

He saw The Box out of the corner of his eye.

Cocking his head at it, Castiel raised an eyebrow. Maybe?...

He allowed one of his hands to sneak down the back of his pants and brush over his opening again. This time, the pleasure was expected, and his only response was a hitch in his breath. 

Making his decision, Castiel shucked his pants and pulled off his shirt, tossing them both to the floor beside the bed. Dean wasn’t home, and judging by the time, probably wouldn’t be for awhile. He would use his fingers, not the toys. Those things were _huge_ and there was no way they would fit inside him comfortably. 

Tentatively, Castiel probed at his furled hole with a single finger. He was still wet enough that he wouldn’t need lube, so he slowly sunk his index finger in up to his first knuckle.

Nothing much happened. No fireworks went off, no alarms blared, no confetti rained down on his head. All that occurred was a small explosion of pleasure that zinged across his skin. It was a new kind of pleasure, not the kind that his hand on his dick gave, but a fuller kind, more satisfying. 

Castiel focused on relaxing his muscles and sunk his finger deeper. Yeah, that was _definitely_ good. More than good, it was _awesome_. He spread his legs wider and pulled his finger out a little before pushing it back in.

His spine arched against the bed as if it had a mind of its own, hips pushing down and muscles clenching. Castiel gasped for air as he started steady pace, writhing on the sweat soaked sheets and feeling even more slick leak from him. Pleasure practically _oozed_ from his pores, eyes rolling back into his head and breath coming in short, harsh pants. And if this was just one finger…

On the next thrust up, Castiel added his middle finger, unable to stop the groan that seeped out from his lips. Slowly, his scissored himself open, twisting his fingers and dragging them along his walls, almost sobbing with how good it felt. 

Then, his middle finger brushed against something different and Castiel _screamed_ , stars going off behind his eyes and electricity zooming across his flesh, igniting every nerve in his body. He felt like he was floating and sinking all at once, flying and falling, and when he came to, he realized he was clutching at the headboard with a white knuckled fist. 

Castiel brushed his finger against that spot again, this time biting down on his bottom lip to keep himself silent, though a loud moan still escaped. 

Why hadn’t he done this before? There was nothing _bad_ about this, nothing scary, just him and his fingers and all the different ways he could make his skin tingle with pleasure. 

His dick was hard and flushed, so erect it was flat against his stomach, but he ignored it in favor of adding a third finger. He could reach even more of his walls this way, stroking and curling his fingers to reach every nerve ending possible. 

The tendons in his wrist were starting to get sore from the awkward angle, and Castiel eyed The Box out of the corner of his eye. The blue one wouldn’t hurt, as long as he made sure that it stayed very much _off_ , but it was so…impersonal. Made of plastic, nothing like a real flesh and blood knot would feel inside him.

His body seemed to approve of the idea, because his muscles clenched down around his fingers almost painfully. He imagined a strong body draped over his, pounding into him in earnest, gripping his waist tightly with oil-stained fingers.

_Oh_. Shudders worked their way through his limbs, and more slick was dripped out of his tightly clamping hole.

“Dean,” Castiel whispered on a way up, eyes falling shut with the pleasure of simply uttering the alpha’s name. He imagined Dean’s mouth on his neck, Dean’s mouth on his chest, Dean’s mouth on his hips, Dean’s mouth on his cock, Dean’s mouth on his thighs, Dean’s mouth _everywhere_. The sensation of his fingers inside him increased tenfold when he pictured Dean’s fingers in their place, grinning up at him from between his legs as he rubbed Castiel’s prostate. 

At first, Castiel thought he was hallucinating again, because without any warning, the door to his bedroom swung inward, pushed open by a grease-stained hand, as if he had been summoned by Castiel thinking about him. 

“Hey Cas, what's goi-….”

Dean’s sentence spluttered to a stop as he locked eyes with Castiel- panting, writhing, sweating, shuddering Castiel. His jaw opened and closed a few times, lost for words as he held Castiel’s gaze before his eyes broke away and traveled down his body, wide gaze stopping where Castiel was fucking his fingers into himself.

“Cas,” Dean croaked, whining a little in the back of his throat when Castiel drew his fingers almost all the way around only to shove them back in, head dropping back against the pillow. 

“Dean,” Castiel groaned in response, not missing the way the alpha shivered at the sound of his name.

“Cas,” Dean said again, vocabulary seemingly comprised of that single syllable at the moment. Castiel’s hand flew up to grasp the headboard again when he hit his prostrate, making a strangled sound in the back of his throat that seemed to yank Dean forward, had him stumbling towards the bed like a marionette whose strings had been jerked.

“Cas, you need to tell me if you want me to leave,” Dean said breathlessly. His eyes had grown black, overcome by pupil, and they were filled with something dark and heady when he returned his gaze to Castiel’s. “You need to tell me _now_.” 

Castiel’s hand stopped as he considered. He unburied all those unwanted little comments in his head, allowed them to flood his mind. He considered Dean- strong, compassionate, endearing Dean who had given Castiel a choice, always backed away when he pushed him and drew in closer when he pulled him. He considered his body, which was reacting so strongly to Dean as it had not reacted to the other alphas. He considered all this, then pulled his fingers from his body and sat up, holding his hand out to the alpha and beckoning him forward.

Dean fell onto the bed, there was no other way to put it, he _toppled_ onto the mattress, not even bothering to kick off his shoes before he was covering Castiel’s body with his own, an instinct leftover from older times when an omega in heat was something that needed to be shielded from prying eyes and even a caught and willing omega could still be snatched away by another alpha.

Castiel tipped his head back to bare his throat in submission and Dean growled possessively, ducking his head to lick and nip at the sensitive skin under his jaw. Castiel gasped and bucked up when Dean’s teeth closed over his jugular, sinking his teeth into the sensitive skin and nibbling to bring a bruise to the surface.

“Dean,” Castiel groaned, his voice clearly saying _get on with it_ , but Dean just hummed and nosed upwards to lick behind Castiel’s jaw at his scent gland, tongue coaxing out more oil and greedily lapping it up.

“So good,” Dean murmured, a purr starting to rumble in his chest that Castiel could feel vibrating against his own. The deep tremors sparked an elated feeling inside him, inner omega reacting to his alpha’s emotions. “You smell so fucking good, Cas, you don’t even know. Driving me crazy all week.”

“Yeah?” Castiel panted, loosing his train of thought when Dean switched to sucking at his scent gland, eyes squeezing shut and mouth dropping open until he let up, starting licking again. “You too.” 

Dean’s purr grew louder and he nosed once more behind Castiel’s jaw before dropping lower, laying a trail of kisses down his neck and across his collarbone, pausing to lap up the sweat gathered in the hollow below his throat. 

Following the rivulets of sweat dripping down his skin, Dean traced a droplet down to one of Castiel’s nipples, swirling his tongue around the nub before sucking it into his mouth and rolling it between his teeth. Castiel arched up against the feeling, couldn’t help the cry that was punched out of him. Dean snarled triumphantly in the back of his throat before switching to the other one, lavishing it with the same attention before continuing downwards. 

Castiel’s breathing sped up as he watched Dean lay kisses along his abdomen, brushing his across starvation-prominent ribs with a whine and nosing at them like an apology, or a promise. When he nipped at them, Castiel yelped and jerked, arm flying out to bat his head away. Dean glanced up uncertainly, a question etched into his frown, but it quickly dissolved into a mischievous grin upon seeing the look on Castiel’s face.

“Don’t you dare,” Castiel hissed, but Dean’s head was already descending towards his stomach and his hips were pinned down before the words even left his mouth. 

Castiel wiggled and shrieked as Dean blew raspberries into the taunt skin above his navel, trying to shove his head away without avail. He gave up after a few seconds, resorting to desperate flailing and hysterical laughter. 

“Dean,” Castiel gasped out, managing to squeeze words in between fits of giggles. “Dean….please…..ah!” 

Dean finally took pity on him, laughter shaking his own chest when he finally pulled away, smoothing a hand over Castiel’s stomach just to feel the muscles jump beneath his fingers. He licked a teasing stripe up Castiel’s torso in the shallow indent between his ab muscles, ending at his pectorals and resting his forehead against Castiel’s, smiling softly as he waited for Castiel to catch his breath.

“You bastard,” Castiel said, words tapering off into a sigh as Dean’s hands slipped up his body, working over everywhere his lips had just been. His touch was light and reverent, so unlike the tight, possessive grip Castiel had expected from an alpha. It was like he couldn’t really believe that this was real, that he had to keep his hands on Castiel to make sure he didn’t just slip away. 

“You’re beautiful,” Dean whispered. Castiel felt the words tumble from Dean’s mouth and break against his own like waves on sand, so close he felt Dean’s lips shape the syllables and the warm breath that carried them. “You know that, right?”

Castiel turned his head away instead of answering, tipping his jaw up in hopes of enticing Dean with the expanse of his neck, persuade him to drop the question, to let it slide, because it was too intimate, too close.

But Dean ignored the offer, instead catching Castiel’s chin in his hand and bringing his gaze back to those greener than green eyes.

“I’m serious,” he said. 

“I know,” Castiel said, and for some reason his voice was breaking, shattering around the edges from trying to fit through his rapidly swelling throat. This was stupid. He was stupid. Why was he crying? He had nothing to cry about. 

“Hey,” Dean murmured. “What’s with the waterworks?” He kissed the tears that had slipped from Castiel’s eyes when he closed them, following the wet line of salt water back to the source and dropping a peck on each of his eyelids.

It was too overwhelming, all of this, this wave of _something_ rising up inside of him. He wanted to give himself over completely, let Dean take him apart piece by piece and rearrange him again, create a whole new person, and it was _terrifying_. Putting his life in someone’s hands like that, depending on completely on another person, meant he could easily end up on the streets with nothing but a duffel bag and a roll of cash. He couldn’t let that happen, not again. 

“Cas, look at me.” 

Castiel obeyed, opening his eyes and sniffing, sounding pathetic even to his own ears.

“Listen to me. This is very important, what I’m about to tell you, okay?”

A nod.

“Good. I have never felt this way about another human being, except maybe Sammy, but there’s no way in heaven or hell that I would do this with him.” Castiel chuckled weakly, sniffed again. “I don’t what you did to me man, I can’t stop thinking about you.” He paused to rub his nose against Castiel’s. “And I am _not_ going to leave you, okay? That was your douchebag uncle and his douchebag ideals and I may be many things, but a douchebag is not one of them. So quit your worrying because I’m kind of trying to fuck you here and it’s not going to go over very well if you’re crying. Capische?”

“Yes, I capische.”

“You sure?”

Castiel rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dean, I’m sure.”

“Don’t mock me,” Dean said, but there was no venom behind the words.

“You talk too much,” Castiel said, and looped his arms around Dean’s neck to pull him down and slant their mouths together. 

Dean’s hands slid from cupping Castiel’s face up into his hair, dragging his blunt nails against his scalp and making Castiel moan into the kiss. Dean surged impossibly closer at the noise, laying even more weight on Castiel before propping himself up a little bit on his elbows, still twirling Castiel’s hair between his fingers.

When Dean’s tongue traced the seam of his lips, asking for entry, Castiel offered it eagerly, opening his mouth to the warm press of Dean’s tongue. This part he didn’t know, but Dean showed him how to tilt his jaw and twist his tongue and bite down every so often with just the right amount of pressure. Castiel was a quick learner, and grinned in triumph whenever he found a new spot that elicited a moan from Dean.

Oil-stained fingers slid through the sweat on Castiel’s body, covering his fevered flesh with cool hands and soothing the wildfire inside him. When Dean’s palm cupped Castiel’s thigh, he pushed his hips forward, but Dean bypassed his cock to skim over his hole.

“So wet for me,” Dean whispered against his mouth, easily slipping two fingers in without resistance. “Why didn’t you use the toys, baby?”

“T-too-…too fake,” Castiel gasped, feeling every twitch of Dean’s fingers down to the very tips of his toes. His fingers curled in Dean’s shirt as he tried to ground himself to reality, using the fabric as a distraction to not loose himself in the feeling of Dean inside him. “Wanted something r-real.” He made a sound that resembled something along the lines of _ngh_ when Dean added a third finger. “Wa-..wanted _you_.”

Dean growled at that, twisted his fingers harshly, dragging tips of them across his walls and Castiel cried out, pushed down onto his hand as he tried to force the fingers deeper. Dean kissed his temple and pressed a hand to his hips, keeping him down on the bed. Castiel whimpered and twitched his pelvis up fervently against Dean’s palm, but Dean was strong and had him successfully pinned down. 

“Shh, sweetheart, s’okay. I got you.” 

“Dean, _please_ ,” Castiel begged. He wasn’t even sure what he was begging for anymore. 

Dean hummed, like he was doing some ordinary, run of the mill thing, jotting down directions instead of shoving three fingers up Castiel’s ass at a punishing pace. Castiel dropped his hands to the bed and twisted his fingers into the sheets, clutching at them in an attempt to keep his sanity. 

“You should be more patient. But I guess you could use something to take the edge off.”

Castiel barely had time to comprehend the words before Dean was swooping down his body. By the time Castiel managed to focus on him, Dean’s head was already positioned above his cock, and all he registered was a hot puff of breath against the head before Dean swallowed him down, tip brushing against the back of his throat in one go.

One bob and that was all it took for Castiel to come, screaming out Dean’s name to the ceiling as his spine bent at such an intense angle he was sure that it would snap. White noise buzzed in his ears and overtook his vision, sensations swirling together in one pulsating mass of pleasure for at least a minute before his senses returned, muscles still twitching and jerking with random aftershocks. 

Dean was right, all it did was take the edge off. He was still just as hard and Dean’s fingers still felt just as good, at least the sense of urgency was at bay for a little while. Castiel flexed his hands and, somewhat sheepishly, realized he had torn the sheets.

“Better?” Dean asked, sucking a bruising kiss onto one of his hipbones. 

“Yes,” Castiel breathed. 

“Too bad you’re in heat,” Dean said nonchalantly. “I would fuck you bare if you weren’t, fill you up with my come.” Castiel felt himself clench down on Dean’s fingers at the thought, the ghost sensation of being filled with Dean’s seed igniting every omega tendency woven through his genes. He could hear Dean’s smirk in his words as he said, “Looks like you like that idea.” 

Dean pressed his nose to Castiel’s inner thigh and inhaled deeply, scenting the smell of his arousal and growling when Castiel mimicked him, flaring his own nostrils to smell Dean’s. His scent was thicker, darker than it had been when they first met, tainted with the heady aroma of his heat-induced rut, something that Castiel himself had brought on. His body had made Dean’s scent change like that and it made something not far from the possession he knew Dean felt for him swell in his chest. 

Castiel’s attention was diverted roughly from that something when he felt the unmistakable wet press of Dean’s tongue against his hole, worming in beside his fingers. He groaned and threw his hands up, grappling for the headboard, the wall, any kind of purchase to grasp.

Dean hummed and the vibrations traveled through Castiel’s entire body, shuddering through his very bones and making him shake with need. 

“Dean, now,” he babbled, loosing control of his tongue. “Now, Dean, please now, need you so bad, _please_.”

Withdrawing his tongue and fingers pulled a wretched whine from Castiel, the loss of contact leaving him clenching over nothing and feeling horribly empty, but Dean hushed him with a kiss to his thigh. 

“Turn over,” he said against Castiel’s skin. “I’m wearing too many clothes for this.”

Castiel eagerly obeyed, flipping into his stomach and propping himself up on his forearms, head bent at an angle he knew would display the smooth transition from his spine to his neck. He heard rustling behind him, a belt buckle clinking, clothes being tossed away. It was only when he heard the rip of a condom wrapper that Castiel’s shoulders tightened, nervous anticipation curling low in his gut.

He wasn’t worried about the actual act- oh no, he was looking forward to that- but rather was frightened of what would come after. Would Dean suddenly change into a stereotypically possessive, rough alpha, making Castiel wear a collar and not permitting him to leave the apartment without his consent? Or was he really not interested in a long-term relationship, just a quick lay, and would sell Castiel to a breeder or brothel the minute he could fetch a good price for him?

The warmth of Dean as he laid on top of him soothed his anxiety and he pressed back into the solid weight of the alpha’s body, taking comfort in the way they slotted together. He sighed, a tiny sound, at the kiss Dean planted on the back of his neck. 

Castiel tipped his pelvis up, trying to get Dean to slip into him, but Dean titled his own hips away with a chuckle, nuzzling at the back of Castiel’s neck instead. 

“Dean,” Castiel groaned. “Stop being a tease.” He canted his ass higher, curved his lower back in invitation. 

Dean took advantage of the arc of his body to run a hand up his back, fingers dipping in and of the shadow of his spine before spreading across the wings of his shoulder blades, feeling the bone move restlessly beneath Castiel’s skin. He kneaded the tense line of his shoulders and cooed soft sounds into his hair that turned Castiel’s muscles to liquid.

“Perfect,” Dean purred. “Perfect little omega for me.”

Castiel whined wiggled against him, pressed up into Dean’s body in an effort to cover the alpha in his scent, make himself irresistible. Dean, however, was having none of it, and slipped his hand from Castiel’s shoulder to the back of his neck, emitting a low, warning growl and sinking his nails into his nape.

Castiel’s body recognized the action for what it was before he did, a prelude to an alpha’s teeth sinking into the soft flesh there in a claiming mark, and he stilled beneath Dean. The growl turned into a purr and Dean kissed the flesh beside his fingers, nuzzled the side of his neck as Castiel felted something hard and warm nudge between his cheeks. He inhaled sharply and spread his legs wider. 

“You tell me to stop, and I will,” Dean said, words tumbling out on a breathless rush of air. “Anytime, Cas, and I’ll stop.”

Castiel could only whimper and buck up again Dean’s cock, held immobile and silent by the nails in his nape. 

Finally, _finally_ , Castiel felt the blunt press of Dean’s dick against his hole, pressing insistently until it slipped past his rim and into his body, slick easing the way. 

Pleasure. 

Pure, exploding, lighting bolt pleasure rocketing from the tip of his toes to the ends of his hair, furling out around him like great, feathery wings. Castiel’s entire being, entire world, had narrowed down to this room, to this bed, and the feeling of fullness and completion that made his soul sing and his heart pound against his ribcage. 

Nothing else mattered but the steady rock of Dean’s body against his, the harsh sound of Dean’s breath in his ears, Dean’s hands holding his hips down as he fucked into him. Dean didn’t even have to press his neck down anymore, Castiel stayed submissively flat of his own accord, brain too busy short circuiting to allow him to do much more than lay there limply and whine with pleasure. 

An arm looped around Castiel’s waist and tugged at him, forcing him to rear up on his knees. He threw his arms around Dean’s neck for balance, head falling back against his shoulder and mouth dropping open in a silent moan at the way this new angle made Dean sink impossibly deeper.

Dean’s hands came up from where they were sitting on Castiel’s hips to run up his chest, stopping when they reached Castiel’s nipples and tugging playfully. Castiel groaned and curved against him, a bow pulled taunt by Dean’s fingers. He was on the edge again, so close but so far away, and started bouncing in an effort to push himself over.

A growl vibrated against his back, he must be fucking up Dean’s rhythm completely, but all he did, all he _could_ do, was squeeze his arms tighter and sob out a broken moan.

The hands at his nipples abruptly disappeared, instead one of them grasped his hips, rendering him immobile. The question of the other one was answered a moment later when Castiel’s eyes flew open at the feeling of fingers closing around his cock, jacking him off to the pace of Dean’s thrusts. He couldn’t even scream anymore, just made a sound like a wounded animal as he came, struggling for breath under the onslaught of sensations. 

Rolling his head towards Dean, Castiel found him wearing a mix of concentration and frustration on his face. Alarm punched him in the chest upon seeing it- that was not a look an alpha sound be donning during mating. Castiel made a questioning noise, dared to nudge his nose under Dean’s jaw and, when he received no reaction, nip lightly at his neck.

Dean initially barred his teeth and snapped his hips more forcefully at the feel of Castiel’s canines against his throat, alpha instincts screaming that it was not an omega’s place to mark his mate. But then he slid his lips back over his teeth and he tipped his head, offering Castiel the length of his throat in a thrilling display of alpha submission. 

Castiel’s found his own chest rumbling with a purr- higher, lighter than Dean’s- and was initially startled into silence by the sound. Zachariah had never allowed his siblings or him to purr, he said it was animalistic, and this was the first time he had ever made such a noise. But he reminded himself that anything Zachariah had told him was null and void here and he grinned and purred as loud as he could as he pressed hot, open mouthed kisses to the sunkissed skin of his alpha’s neck, tracing the splattering of light freckles with his tongue.

A huff was all the warning he got before he was slammed back down against the mattress as Dean lost control to his animalistic side, the side that demanded Castiel lay on his stomach and submit. He pressed his hands to Castiel’s lower back and growled threateningly, to which Castiel tipped his forehead against the mattress to offer his neck in an attempt to placate his alpha. 

Dean ignored the action, instead kept shifting his hips on every thrust, changing the angle his cock slid into Castiel’s body every time. Every so often, he made a noise of irritation that Castiel didn’t understand, whining petulantly every time he heard it.

Then, the head of Dean’s dick brushed against that spot instead Castiel and he _howled_ , whole body jerking as he came again, almost missing the triumphant snarl it pulled from Dean. He pistoned his hips at than angle, hit Castiel’s prostate again and again and again. 

By the time Castiel felt the swelling at the base of Dean’s dick that signified he was near climax, Castiel had already come three more times, bed beneath him soaked and reeking of him. The bed springs screamed in protest as Dean started loosing his rhythm for the sake of going faster, headboard pounding against the wall with every slam. His fingers slipped where they were grasping at Castiel’s waist, sliding through the sheen of sweat covering his body. 

With one final thrust, Dean stopping pumping and started rutting, pushing into Castiel with small, tight circles of his hips until the muscles of his rim gave away and allowed for Dean’s knot to pass through. 

Dean growled as he started to come, diving forward and latching his teeth onto Castiel’s nape so hard blood rose to the surface, driven by an instinct to lock his jaw onto that vital place in a double effort with his knot to keep his omega from escaping the breeding. The pain was nothing in comparison to the sensation of Dean’s cock twitching inside of him as it pumped out load after load of come. He felt his muscles clenching down, milking the alpha for every last drop of seed, and in that moment Castiel hated the inventor of condoms, hated the thin skin of latex that kept the last piece of Dean’s claim on his body from him. 

Dean gently stroked Castiel’s sides as he came down, managing to unlock his jaw and rest his forehead between Castiel’s shoulder blades instead, twitching as the last few spurts of come left his body. He dropped a gentle kiss to the rope of Castiel’s spine as his breathing slowed, heartbeat still thudding so hard Castiel could feel it as easily as his own. 

Maneuvering them as best he could with the knot still locking them together, Dean turned both of them on their sides and away from the wet spot, curling around Castiel protectively. Castiel sighed and covered Dean’s hand on his stomach with his own, resting his other palm on the arm thrown across his side. 

His heat wasn’t completely gone, wouldn’t be until it had run its natural course or was doused with an alpha or beta’s seed, but being claimed had drastically reduced the discomfort. Castiel felt his eyelids drooping, succumbing to comforting heat emitted by Dean’s body, when he heard a gentle voice pulling him back to consciousness. 

“I bit you,” Dean said quietly, more to himself than anything. A light touch brushed across the bite, then the swipe of a tongue, cleaning away the blood smeared around the mark. 

“It was expected,” Castiel yawned, squeezing Dean’s arm consolingly as he continued to clean the wound. He pressed a gentle kiss to the sensitive skin before speaking again, softly. 

“I didn’t mean to-…I shouldn’t have without asking you first.”

“It’s fine.” He just wanted to sleep, but Dean was talking again and Castiel didn’t even know about what but he didn’t particularly care. He cracked his eyes open, staring at the opposite wall in irritation. 

“Dean.”

“Hm?”

“ _Shut up_.” 

There was a stunned silence before Dean chuckled, chest shaking against Castiel’s back as he flipped the hand on his stomach and laced his fingers through Castiel’s. 

The last thing Castiel felt before dropping off to sleep was the press of lips behind his ear and the vibration of a deep voice humming a lullaby into his skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Might be writing a sequel, so check back soon if you want to suffer through 20k more words of my word vomit.


End file.
